The Donald Trump
Show
The first Republican debate was held in Cleveland, Ohio, and televised on Fox
News. However if you looked at your TV guide, it might have said the Donald
Trump Show instead of the first Republican Debate. Trump seemed to own everyone
in the room, the audience, the moderator, and even the millions of people
watching from home. During the debate, it became very easy to forget that there
were nine other candidates on stage. Ironically, Trump was positioned in the
center of the stage. The nine other candidates had all prepared speeches and
practiced answering the moderator’s questions, but it seemed like everyone was
fixated on Donald Trump, but is this one man show for better or for worse?
Trump immediately stood out by being the only person on stage to say that he is
not scared to run without the Republican Party and would run as an Independent.
Trump also used facial expressions as if he were bored and disgusted by the
points being made against him by the other candidates. This type of behavior is
without question rude and childish, but it seemed that the audience and
millions of people on social media loved it. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul
stressed that,” Trump buys and sells politicians of all stripes”. Donald Trump
responded,” I’ve given him plenty of money”. The audience erupted as well as
did social media. Trump was dodging the accusations being made against him by
sticking to him usual niche of humor.
21 minutes had gone by without the spotlight being on Trump and he absolutely
made sure that this spotlight came back to him. Moderator Megyn Kelly pointed
out the fact that Trump is demeaning towards women. “You’ve called women, that
you don’t like, fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals”, Megyn Kelly
exclaimed. Trump interrupted her while she was talking and said,” Only Rosie
O’Donell”, this remark was followed by a quick smirk and a spike in social
media. Once again Trump had dodged a point being made against him by using his
rude and crude humor. He followed that remark up with,” I think a big problem
in this country is being politically correct”.
However, the testiest moment of the night shockingly did not involve Donald
Trump. Instead it involved New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Kentucky
Senator Rand Paul. The argument was about the NSA’s bulk data collection, which
Christie supports and Paul does not. Rand Paul came out looking like the winner
of this argument by trying to compromise Christie’s intelligence and by showing
that Paul does not support President Obama. “You fundamentally misunderstand
the Bill of Rights. I do not trust President Obama with our records, I know you
gave him a big hug and if you want to give him a big hug again, go right
ahead”, said Paul. This caused the audience to erupt with approval and clapping
for Rand Paul. Christie tried to use sympathy to get him out of this argument
and it didn’t seem to work, he said, “I remember giving hugs to people who lost
their families on September 11th”.
After the debate was finished there were some different opinions of how well
the debate went for Trump. Matthew Dowd, senior strategic advisor, thought that
Trump has hurt himself in this debate. Dowd stated that," Trump had
momentum coming into the debate, but over a course of two hours, I think it
wore thin. I think any momentum he had coming into tonight has stopped.
He made a few errors in some of his engagements tonight with the moderators”.
Mel Robbins of CNN did not agree with Dowd. She said,” The debate is over and
Trump is still winning. He dominated the polls leading into the debate, he
dominated pre-bate commentary, and he was the only candidate that the press
greeted when he arrived in Ohio. No one else was memorable.” Dowd also thought
that the winner of the debate was John Kasich, Governor of Ohio. Kasich did
seem to be the most mature and answered his questions nicely and didn’t involve
himself in the Trump Show. Kasich also had the best line of the night, when
asked about gay marriage, he replied,” God loves me unconditionally, therefore,
I’m going to love my family and my friends unconditionally.”
It is very interesting to look at and analyze the strategies being used by
different candidates. Look at Trump and the strategy he used when talking, he
appealed to the audience through humor. Rand Paul tried attacking and demeaning
the intelligence of his fellow candidates/opponents. Chris Christie tried using
sympathy to win some applause from the audience, which didn’t really work.
These three different candidates are using different strategies when speaking
in the debate and it is important to recognize and understand those strategies
so that you are not fooled by their words. Also it is hard to tell which
strategy is most useful. I think you would have to look into the statistics of
the debate in order to find out.
The debate set a record for most viewers, with 24 million. Carly Fiorina
emerged into 2nd place right behind Donald Trump. Trump’s strategy
brought him a lot of attention, but was it negative? The polls say negative.
Trump lost support, he was at 32% support and now at 24%. So it seems like the
experts are split on whether or not Trump helped or hurt himself and the polls
say that he did hurt himself but somehow is still #1. Whether or not he helped
himself or not, Trump accomplished his mission of turning the first GOP Debate
of 2015 to the Trump show.
Work Cited
Carly
Fiorina rockets to No. 2 behind Donald Trump - CNNPolitics.com. (n.d.).
Retrieved October 27, 2015.
First GOP
Debate: Donald Trump, and Other Memor\able Moments. (n.d.). Retrieved October
27, 2015.
GOP
debate: Biggest winners, losers (Opinions) - CNN.com. (n.d.). Retrieved October
27, 2015.
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