The Gish gallop

After 73 years on the planet, after living with a father who taught English to high school students for nearly half of his professional career, after someone like myself who actually majored in English in college and who spent a 30-plus-year career in journalism, I never heard of something called the Gish gallop until after the presidential debate between convicted felon Donald Trump and President Joe Biden on Thursday.

The label came up Friday on a post by respected pundit Heather Cox Richardson in which she describes the Gish gallop as a rhetorical technique "in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them."

Well, that's exactly what Trump does. No substance to his agenda, no evidence in his accusations. I'm not even sure he does that on purpose. He just does. It's who he is.

And it's effective.

Whoever coached Biden for the debate completely overlooked the Gish gallop ploy and consequently, it made Biden look incompetent.

Because the technique had a somewhat funny name – Gish – I thought it was something of a joke. Then I Googled it and found out that it was actually something real (see here). How did I not know this?

I think this is exactly what happened Thursday night in which Trump's stream of documented lies (30 lies in 90 minutes, according to CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale. See here) absolutely befuddled Biden and made him look weary, confused and, well, unpresidential. 

Uh-oh.

Democrats across the country (I suspect) immediately went into panic mode, declaring that Biden withdraw from the presidential race before the debate was even over. I might have been one of them. Democrats looked doomed. Sometimes, looking (and feeling) doomed is what Democrats do best.

But almost immediately after the debate, Biden became a different man. In the post-debate watch party, he was clear-voiced and certain. Where was that an hour earlier?  Later that night, after flying to North Carolina, he gave an impromptu Q&A at the Raleigh airport at 2 a.m. Then, that afternoon, he gave a smart, impassioned speech.

The passage of time, by even a couple hours, seem to be making a difference. Democrats said they raised $27 million after the debate – a remarkable sum given Biden's performance – so support for the candidate is still clearly there.

In spite of Biden's apparent debate debacle, he's still going to be the Democrat Party's candidate. I think there could be a lesson learned here. 

Fight back.

Every mention of Trump by Biden from here on out should begin with "34-time convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, failed businessman and fraudster Donald Trump." 

It's time for the Dems to do their own gallop.