Donald Trump’s debate tactic: a flame blower of lies and deception known as the Gish gallop
Donald Trump’s debate tactic: a flame blower of lies and deception known as the Gish gallop
You may not know the term ‘Gish gallop‘ but you’ve seen it in action if you have watched any Donald Trump performance. It is a firehose of lies and disinformation employed to sow chaos rather than educate. It is dishonorable.
The technique is named for creationist Duane Gish who used it in his debates with biologists [and described in the Scientific American].
His tactic consisted of talking fast and with confidence, bombarding opponents with falsehoods, non-sequiturs and enough cherry-picked factoids to confuse the audience. Scientists debating him faced the challenge of sifting half-truths from outright lies and finding the right evidence to refute them systematically, all within the few minutes allowed in response.
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Nothing that Trump does is in good faith nor does he comport to norms. If that were the case, he would not still be trumpeting lies from eight years ago.
This scenario sounds eerily similiar to how news organizations, “[d]espite eight years and two election cycles,” continue to normalize Trump’s speeches by providing a coherence that is missing from the original.
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It is the news media’s job to point out untruths. Period. Not parrot them or slide them under the rug.
Scientific American calls this integrity. I think of it as ethics. To that end, today’s journalists need to revisit the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists:
Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity (emphasis added).
It's a wild time.
The Republican candidate is a legit insurrectionist, proven pathological liar, impeached multipled times, and has collected indictments like Halloween candy. None of this, presumably, has changed the minds of the 49% who vote Republican obediently and robotically every two years.
The Democratic candidate, meanwhile, has taken no documented public positions and is answering all of this with memes. (And if you don't believe me, go try and find a public platform on her website.) Her position is: "Just trust us," which I imagine is hard to do in a time when your party just held the presidency for four years and Congress for two, and nearly everyone is vastly poorer or working harder for the same pay.
It really is the Giant Douche vs the Turd Sandwich.
Sorry to always respond, but it seems you are working really hard to discourage voting for Harris.
You forgot to mention out the part how Trump has continually legitimized and empowered violent white nationalists, and is actively working to turn America into a social conservative dictatorship. (throwing out human rights for women and LGBTQ people, worker safety, medicare, education, planned parenthood, women being able to travel freely or seek medical treatment etc etc)
Harris using memes and being vague about her platform makes them equally bad in your opinion? You think people shouldn't vote for her when the stakes are so high?
You can respond as you like (provided you're not going to be an a-hole), but understand that if you don't like my point of view, you do have the option to block me. If you've decided, over the course of seeing lots of my posts that you don't like what you have to say, then you probably should.
With that said, my point of view on this is informed by history and poverty. I grew up poor and have had some lucky breaks the last few years, but even so, I have 80 year-old parents driving for DoorDash, using my car, so I am less focused on social issues than I am on the widespread poverty evident in this country. They'd be destitute and starving if I didn't have a car to loan them, in Joe Biden's America, and potentially Kamala Harris' America.
With those precarious circumstances a daily part of my life, Trump isn't particularly scary. What's scary is the knowledge that no matter who we elect, I can trust nothing meaningful is going to be done to help my elderly parents survive.
What makes them equally bad to me is that they have bipartisanship in the worst ways for majority of the US population, and I can see it every single day when my parents are out delivering people's food.
I'm enjoying a limited podcast series, Master Plan - An investigative podcast series exposing the 50-year plot to legalize corruption in America. I was just opining to my partner at how successfully the right has capitalized on culture war to distract their constituents. Instead of asking why someone like Lonnie has incredible wealth and they have nothing, they ask what genitals you have and which bathroom you're using. Astounding.
When it’s her turn to respond, Harris should turn the tables on Trump by calling him out as a liar without bothering to refute each lie and refocus the audience on her own message
Exactly. Just call him what he is and don't address anything he says. "That's a pack of lies."
Also the reverse gish gallop (link is to Innuendo Studios' Alt Right Playbook)