On September 26, 2016, in Hampstead, New York, two candidates stood in front of a mediator, a crowd, and their entire country in their first debate, shooting back and forth at each other their opinions on current national and global issues and how they can lead America to improve its situation.
On August 21, 1858, in Ottawa, Illinois, two candidates stood in front of a crowd of people and shot back and forth their opinions on the current situation of the country, arguing for why they would make a better representative in Senate for the state of Illinois.
Almost exactly 158 years since the Lincoln-Douglas debates for state legislature, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump debated for the very first time for the 2016 presidential election. While many social, economic, and political changes have been made in the last century-and-a-half, there were also many noticeable similarities in debate and persuasion techniques within both very different periods of time.
On The Topic Of "Minority" Groups
Even though slavery was abolished many years ago, racial equality has been a persisting topic throughout the course of time. Douglas tried to accuse Lincoln of wanting to make the slaves completely equal, stating:
"If you desire negro citizenship, if you desire to allow them to come into the State and settle with the white man, if you desire them to vote on an equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to serve on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship of the negro."
As a response, Lincoln claimed that he was not "in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races", but instead said that he was focused on preserving the Union by preventing the expansion of slavery.
Today, America has come a long way in terms of racial equality. However, when race was brought up at the 2016 presidential debate, similar themes were brought up.
Donald Trump emphasized his idea of law-and-order on the topic of police brutality, especially among young black men. When describing the current situation of this issue, he claimed:
"We have a situation where we have our inner cities, African- Americans, Hispanics are living in hell because it's so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot."
Both Douglas and Trump used a similar method to emphasize their points: group generalization. Douglas further separated the whites from the blacks by claiming that whites, as a group, were superior and should not become equal with the "negroes". Trump also segregated African-Americans and Hispanics by claiming that, as a group, they all generally lived dangerous, war-like communities.
Clinton's argument for this topic contrasted greatly from Trump's. She argues:
"But we also have to recognize, in addition to the challenges that we face with policing, there are so many good, brave police officers who equally want reform. So we have to bring communities together in order to begin working on that as a mutual goal."
Lincoln and Clinton harbor similar arguments in the sense that they both are focusing on preserving a certain union within the country, whether it be between North and South or between police and US citizens.
Even though there has been much reform politically, socially, and economically throughout time, it is fascinating how many similarities there are between effective arguments and debate methods.
Method: Striking Fear in the Voters
A method that has proven to be effective in debates is controlling the votes by striking fear in the voters. In the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Douglas creates fear in the voters, whom of which were predominately male white men, by claiming that Lincoln wanted to make all black people equal to whites. This particularly engendered fear of lost power in the voters, which caused them to oppose Lincoln. However, Lincoln struck back with his famous "House Divided" speech, and claims that the expansion of slavery would ultimately ruin the Union. This also triggered fear in the voters, as a divided country would ultimately result in war, which not many at the time truly desired.
Similarly, Clinton and Trump have used fear as a major tool to control the votes. Clinton has used undesirable quotes from her opponent to release accusatory campaign ads. Trump has repeatedly accused Clinton of being corrupt and an incompetent leader. The fear of how one of the candidates could damage the nation has been a major factor in deciding where the votes will go in November of 2016.
Sources:
http://www.history.com/topics/lincoln-douglas-debates
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debates.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/26/the-first-trump-clinton-presidential-debate-transcript-annotated/
Your synthesis of the candidates was really thorough. Its interesting how the issue of race is still being talked about today, 1.5 centuries later. Your article also reveals how candidates lie to promote their cause. In my opinion, there is a big gap between outright lying and advertising. Lincoln never made explicitly clear that he wanted to emancipate the slaves because he knew the country wasn't ready for such a change and that the south would never accept those terms. Similarly, in 2008, Barack Obama changed his status on gay marriage after he was in office. Both Lincoln and Obama never outright lied, but were simply strategic politicians. Time will tell whether or not Trump or Hillary Clinton will keep their promises, but as you said, the constant insults are making the campaign difficult for many voters who are on the fence.
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