The Gish Gallup Gyp: There is a Method Behind the Madness

How The Sizzle and Excitement of a Fallacy Lets Trump Keep Going Where Others May Implode

Nuke the hurricanes. Take out mailboxes. Buy Denmark. Sell Puerto Rico. Sharpen the spikes atop the wall so they are more damaging to human flesh. Stop congressionally approved funding to a foreign ally. Start looking into Oleandrin — a toxic cardiac compound from a poisonous plant — as the miracle cure for COVID-19 because “some guy” called the MyPillow CEO and told him so. Those are just some of the ways Trump administers the laws and functioning of the United States. But, “people are telling me…”

“A lot of people are saying that I am doing a great job,” comes the distancing qualifier Trump uses to send the federal government and the press on wild goose chases that, coincidentally, have the effect of so-shocking the media that coverage of Trump failures and atrocities loses focus. It is the Gish Gallop, a cheap and fallacious tactic to overwhelming people with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments.

Gish Gallop gets its name from its use by creationist Duane Gish, a shyster who would hurl as many different half-truths and no-truths into a very short space of time so that it was impossible to…