(Todd A. Smith/Photo Credit: Kevin Bussey for Bussey One Photography)
Most communication (83 percent) is nonverbal.
In fact, people say that words only account for seven percent of what is important when communicating to a wide audience, according to a 1967 focus group conducted by academician, Dr. Albert Mehrabian.
Thirty-eight percent of communication is voice tone, while 55 percent is facial expressions and body language.
As a result of that reality, the split screen format of the Sept. 10 presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump showed one candidate who commanded the stage and another that had a pouty mouth the entire night.
And unfortunately for Trump, visuals at a debate can sway a presidential election.
Just ask supporters of former President Richard Nixon during the first televised presidential debate in 1960, which had a huge impact on his defeat to eventual winner, former President John F. Kennedy.
In 1960, television had not become quite the necessity in the home as it would become in the coming years.
As a result, Nixon made some fatal mistakes like not wearing television makeup.
Kennedy wore the makeup and looked more relaxed and in control of the situation.
His opponent looked scared and nervous.
As a result, most of the people watching it on television believed Kennedy won the debate.
Meanwhile, those listening on the radio thought Nixon won.
The reality that body language and facial expressions say more than words really resonates after the debate on Sept. 10.
While Trump said his usual racist, xenophobic and nonsensical malarkey to take a word from President Joe Biden, the nonverbal messaging appeared just as bad as the verbal miscues.
While Harris looked directly at Trump while castigating him, his rhetoric and his campaign, Trump could not make consistent eye contact with his opponent.
Instead, the Republican presidential nominee consistently stared at the moderators or the camera and made weird facial expressions that one would expect from a petulant child who does not get his or her way.
Not making eye contact made it look like he had something to hide.
His body language made him look scared.
While typical nervousness is normal in a nationally televised debate that might determine the most powerful person on the planet, Trump had faced criticism from his skeptics when he seemed to back pedal from debating Harris after President Biden dropped out of the race.
Media personalities like sports and political commentator Stephen A. Smith even asked Trump via YouTube if he was scared.
And how could he not be scared to death of debating a former prosecutor, especially when confronted with real journalists who would fact check their interviewees in real time?
That combination of facts made it impossible to get away with his habit of spitting alternative facts, to quote Sean Spicer, Trump’s former press secretary.
And that just put Trump’s frustrations and failings on full display for millions of Americans.
The defeated look in his eyes versus the confident look from Harris could not have presented a starker contrast of presidential candidates.
Voters must ask the question, if Trump fears journalists and a short lady from California, how could he stand up to the dictators of Russia and North Korea?
He will not be able to.
Dictators and bullies feed off the fear of their adversaries.
And Trump is fearing for his freedom and his political and business lives right now because the end is extremely near.
While Trump made numerous mistakes during the debate such as his strange lie about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio eating pets, his biggest mistake was not allowing live microphones during this debate.
Muting microphones during his debate against Biden worked in Trump’s favor because it allowed him to appear normal and less senile than the current president.
In essence, in that debate the muted microphones while the other person talked, made Trump look less erratic and belligerent.
Because Biden fumbled the assignment badly during the original 20224 presidential debate, all Trump had to do during that debate was speak in complete sentences and still be alive at the conclusion of the debate.
However, with a worthy opponent to his left, the muted microphones turned out to be a disaster for him because viewers were left looking at his pathetic and miserable facial expressions as opposed to his outlandish and childish outbursts like in past presidential debates in 2016 and 2020.
Harris’ team wanted the microphones to stay live because they felt that the GOP nominee would dig his own hole.
Trump, wanting to replicate the success of his debate against Biden, understandably wanted the microphones muted again.
But as it turns, yesterday’s price is not today’s price as rapper Fat Joe would say, meaning yesterday’s success does not always equal success today.
And the muted microphones did him no favor because there is no confusing his facial expressions with strength, confidence or competency.
His facial expressions showed a man whose time in the political spotlight is coming to an embarrassing close.
His body language showed a man who did not know when it was time to ride off into the sunset like his successor did.
And no amount of words from him can change that.
When an old Muhammad Ali fought his former sparring partner Larry Holmes, he talked his usual boisterous smack.
He looked the part physically too.
But when he entered the ring against the younger Holmes, it looked like elder abuse.
And that is what the debate on Sept. 10 looked like.
Although Trump’s words say one thing, his body and face say something totally different.
And what they say is that it is time for a new day in American politics.
And that new day will come Nov. 5.
