Defeating The Gish Gallop: How Biden Can Counter Trump’s Firehose of Lies

Trump Art, from a back alley in New Zealand. Even they get what a menace Trump is to democracy. Photo by Tim Ward

Are we all past the media-induced panic over Biden’s debate performance? Jeez Louise, Obama’s performance ranked worse in his first date versus McCain – remember that?

So, while I believe debates matter very little in the current state of political polarization, I still think it is worth coming up with a winning strategy defeat Trump’s use of the Gish gallop.

I’m a communications professional with thirty years experience teaching courses in effective communications to scientists, environmentalists, economists and government leaders. I’ve long seen Trump as a menace to our politics precisely because he lies and breaks the rules, and yet the media keeps falling for his cons. (see my book, ProTruth: A Practical Plan for Putting Truth Back into Politics).

Though I’ve previously written about Trump’s use of the firehose of lies in debates, the label “Gish gallop” was new to me, when it started popping up this week.

I’m sure for many of my readers, the term is new, too — though many have already seen Trump use this cheap tactic in every debate. Basically, it means hitting your opponent with so many false statements in a single barrage that they have no way to counter them all and still make their point. If you could imagine a tennis player shooting…