Donald Trump made dozens of false claims in his June debate with President Joe Biden, who complained afterward that "it's hard to debate a liar," but an expert on political rhetoric says there's a way to defeat that tactic.
Whether the former president knows it or not, his strategy of overwhelming his opponent and the moderators with false and outrageous claims was pioneered decades ago by creationist Duane Gish in his debates with scientists on evolution. Philosophy and political science professor Robert Talisse told Mother Jones how the tactic is used — and how it can be neutralized.
The point of the so-called Gish Gallop is “to paralyze and immobilize the dialectical opponent by just burying him or her in a morass of bad arguments and empirically questionable claims," said Talisse, who teaches at Vanderbilt University.
Trump, like Gish, repeatedly spews nonsense and publicly debunked claims as his opponent stands helplessly unable to counter the lies, and this gives his supporters the sense that he won the debate or "owned" the other candidate.
"Owning” the other side has almost nothing to do with having a better command of the facts," Talisse said. "Owning just means overcoming. Especially in presidential debates. Political debating is really just a competition among the two debaters for the headlines the next day, for the soundbite, and for the clip that’s going to get a million views on social media."
Talisse recommended reading the debate transcript rather than watching because that gives a clearer presentation of what each candidate said, and that greatly reduces the power of Trump's gallop, but he concedes voters would miss out on gestures, facial expressions and tone.
"There’s no silver bullet here," Talisse said. "But in my view, knowing that this tactic is so prominent and so central to modern debating strategies, reading the transcripts, even after you’ve watched the live event, elucidates a lot of things," he said.
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"If you’re really interested in making sure you get the whole thing, watch the debate and then read the transcript. Take note of how your impression of the event changes after you’ve read it. I’m always surprised about how much of appears in the transcript that I don’t remember hearing."
He encouraged Harris to call Trump out on his strategy as the best way to defeat it.
"I’m not a debater myself, but I think the best strategy is calling it out and then trying to get back on topic," Talisse said. "Saying, 'This is a Gish Gallop. You’ve said eight things, all of which are objectionable. If I had more time, I could give you my objections to all of them. Let me now just respond like this,' and then as quickly as possible, the interlocutor should get back on message. That’s the way to do it."
