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.

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.

I was struck by this observation in the Lorraine Ali Los Angeles Times column about Trump’s use of the technique.

Despite eight years and two election cycles when Trump, knowingly or not, applied Gish Gallop strategy during his fight for the presidency, American debates still operate around the assumption that each participant will argue in good faith…

He consistently laid waste to debate protocol, knocking moderators and rivals off balance, leaving the audience less informed than they were before the debate started. Moderators have been essentially kneecapped during this round of debates because they’ve agreed that there will be no fact-checking of the candidates’ claims in real time (emphasis added).

“Argue in good faith.”

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.

From Scientific American, by Madhusudan Katti, ecologist and evolutionary biologist at North Carolina State University:

The migration of the Gish gallop from creationist’s patter onto the presidential debate stage, and increasingly onto news opinion pages nationwide, exemplifies a dangerous debasement of honest dialogue in American life. That both the public and its leaders pass over, or applaud, this kind of dishonesty on the highest political stage shows how integrity has taken a back seat to “winning” power in politics, business and the so-called “culture wars,” and now shrouding us in a fog of disinformation (emphasis added).

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).

I applaud Katti’s recommended tactic for Kamala Harris next week:

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 (emphasis added).

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