Hillary Clinton's Speaking: Did Her Speaking Style Contribute to Her Loss?

Did Hillary Clinton's speaking style contribute to her loss in the 2016 election? Maybe, I suppose. In an earlier post, I explained how Donald Trump's speaking style was direct and energetic. Now, Hillary Clinton's speaking style was not bad at all. She spoke firmly and her voice had plenty of variety. Her voice and nonverbal communication were much more similar to what I teach my students than were Donald Trump's. At the same time, she often seemed overly rehearsed and a bit stiff, especially in the three presidential debates. Her smile sometimes seemed forced. When Trump insulted her or tried to intimidate her, her response was a particularly stiff smile. For my part, if I had been in her place (thank goodness that I wasn't!), I would have reacted more directly.

Hillary Clinton

When a woman debates or speaks forcefully, people often unfairly say that she sounds shrill. Clinton had a difficult balance to strike, in that she needed to sound firm and to stand up to Trump without sounding harsh. All the same, I have, many times, heard women debate forcefully and effectively.

So, Clinton did not really do anything wrong. Her problem was, how could she stand up, nonverbally, to Trump's behavior, which was sometimes a bit bizarre? That is a hard question, and I have no clear answer.

There are, of course, several caveats here. First, Clinton's lead in the popular vote has, at this point, reached over 2 million and counting. She gained more total support than Trump. She lost votes in the mostly smaller, more conservative states of  the Midwest and Southeast, most of which are, by the Constitutional Convention's design, over-represented in the Electoral College. Maybe she didn't seem feminine enough to some people, or seemed too feminine to others. Who knows? One of my students was upset that Clinton wore pants, not a dress. Second, hindsight is always 20-20, and post-hoc explanations like mine do not always mean a lot. Still, one has to wonder: was there a way that Clinton could have presented herself nonverbally--voice, gesture, facial expressions--that would have helped her to counter Trump more effectively? Or not?

Official Dept. of State photo