Second debate shows personality politics trumps policy

Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off for the second time on national television Sunday evening. Like many before it, Sunday’s presidential debate was a veritable showcase of oratorical strategies. Red herrings, ad hominem attacks, conflation of meaning — you name the rhetorical device, it was used by both candidates.

But you knew that already.

Those strategies, while showy, do not reflect substance. What is more telling than pointed quips and prepared taglines is the way that both candidates presented themselves to voters. At this point, Trump and Clinton are vying for undecided citizens across the country, individuals like those who were at the town-hall style debate and had the opportunity to ask the candidates critically important questions. Their questions, though, were the ones that the candidates often did their best not to answer.

If you have settled on Trump or Clinton already, as many Americans have, that is great. You have found a candidate who you feel represents you accurately enough to secure your vote. I applaud your conviction and I wish you much success in November. However, the decided voter is not to be addressed here.

This feature will now directly address the uncertain millennial voter. If there is something to be gleaned from this debate for you, it is this: Neither candidate seems to have you specifically in mind when they go to their campaign’s drawing board. One or the other may look like you, talk like you, appear to share your opinions on any number of issues, but from their presentation on Sunday, neither is trying to faithfully represent you. Clinton wants to protect marriage equality and a woman’s right to choose. For a liberal millennial, these are important issues, but certainly not ones unique to them. Trump desires a return to law and order and to smash ISIS. For a conservative millennial, the same commentary applies. Absent from the debate was a detailed discussion of the issues that are of the highest importance to millennial American voters across the board: job opportunities for students who just earned their degrees, food and water accessibility and the availability and affordability of education.

Certainly, some of these topics were touched upon — tangentially — in the course of the debate. In her opening statement, Clinton said that one of her “big goals” was to “[make] sure that we have the best education system from preschool through college, making it affordable, and so much else.” That was the only time college was referenced during the debate. For his part, Trump also touched on an issue important to millennials: as a part of his response to a question about tax policy, Trump expressed his belief that America’s GDP growth rate is too low. Jobs were only ever discussed by both candidates in sweeping generalities, and never with reference to the nearly 2.8 million expected college graduates who will be seeking jobs the year that the new president is sworn in. This was as close as the candidates got to discussing issues that are important and common to millennials from all over the political spectrum.

Of course, the candidates had big things to say in other, more general areas. Trump wants to lower taxes and simultaneously “fix” inner cities for African Americans and Latinos. He wants to crush ISIS using whatever means necessary and concurrently ignore the humanitarian crisis in Syria. He believes that he will be able to bring back manufacturing and energy jobs through his tax cuts and that these jobs will produce enough revenue to pay off the current $590 billion federal budget deficit. How unrealistic this scheme is has never appeared to cross his mind. Clinton, for her part, also had her fair share of generalities and vague desires. When pressed for more specifics, on more than one occasion, Clinton referred to her website rather than offering a succinct, persuasive summary of her plans. Indeed, Clinton made appeals to answer audience questions only when she was being grilled, again, over her email server controversy. When the time came to answer those questions, she would respond with poise, but often without compelling substance. Both candidates failed to explain why their equally vague plans were better. They managed only to show that there were problems with the other’s. What each wants to do in the Oval Office is on the table now — how they intend to go about doing it is still obscure.

Both candidates also seem to forget that there are limits on the power of the president in American democracy. Under our constitution, the president must faithfully execute the laws, but is not the arbiter of all things the government can do. One shouldn’t expect the president to single-handedly solve every problem, or even most problems, that plague society. Laws are for Congress to make, not the president. The American republic is complex, and representative democracy is slow-working. It was designed to be this way for good reason. However, presidential debates are not as popular as they are for reminding voters that the president can only do so much, that the powers of the executive are limited in our democracy. Televised presidential debates are overwhelmingly popular because they present an opportunity for a candidate to reach out to and court voters who have not yet decided who to vote for.

Yet, if the audience at Washington University was hoping for a nuanced discussion of policy ― or even just answers to questions that would help them decide who to cast their vote for they were likely disappointed. Sunday’s spectacle was not so much a contest of persuasive policy as it was, sadly, a contest of personality. Viewers of the debate witnessed an abandonment of decorum in favor of bullish behavior on both sides. And though it is true that personality influences presentation, policy solves problems.

While the candidates were engaged in a heated discussion about each other, both missed an opportunity to explain to millennials that their interests are important. Both candidates missed an opportunity to illustrate how they plan to address millennial issues with detailed and practical policy recommendations. Doing so would have only taken up a small portion of the debate, but, clearly, decade-old personal scandals on both sides are of far greater national importance. This left the undecided millennial no better off after the debate than before.

What we can be certain of, then, is this: Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump appears to be making the concerns of the 78 million millennials in this country a priority, and neither cares specifically about your vote. Yet.