On the Current Gish Gallop

Duane Gish was one of those right-wing morons who rode the idea of “creationism” to notoriety back in the 1970s. Because of the modern American belief that Truth must lie exactly halfway between any two opposing viewpoints, no matter how vacuous or toxic one of those viewpoints might be, he was often invited to “debate” actual scientists regarding evolution. His signature style in these confrontations was to start speaking and never stop, spewing a continuous rapid-fire stream of bullshit designed to overwhelm and discourage whoever had the misfortune to hear it. He’d vomit words with no particular regard for logic, common sense, provable fact, or connection with objective reality and while everything he said was nonsense he never gave anyone time or space to point this out – and even when someone would try, by the time they did Gish would be a dozen lies further down his road.

This is called a Gish Gallop.

The right wing lionized him for this tactic, which is what happens when a group recognizes they have empty and unpopular ideas and must rely on cheap tricks and overwhelming force to get their way.

Not surprisingly, therefore, this is what Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves are doing to the American people right now. The firehose of catastrophic decisions, impeachable offenses, Fascist orders, and callous cruelty that has spewed out from the capital in the nine (NINE!) days since Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was installed into power is specifically designed to disorient and demoralize any coherent opposition while at the same time cementing his authoritarian dismantling of the American republic.

Once you know this, you can protect yourself and others from it. And you can figure out effective responses, rather than spinning wildly after each new outrage.

Because there have been a lot of outrages perpetrated in a very short amount of time. These include:

Attempting to repeal a Constitutional amendment by fiat in order to deny the birthright citizenship that is clearly and explicitly outlined in the Fourteenth Amendment, an amendment ratified in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War to avoid having white supremacists and insurrectionists decide who gets to be an American. If you’ve ever wondered why the American right wing loves to cite the Dred Scott decision (universally regarded by as the worst Supreme Court decision ever made, which is saying something in the target-rich environment that is the Court’s history) it is because that was the decision the Fourteenth Amendment was specifically designed to overturn.

Declaring that he had fired more than a dozen independent Inspectors General – officials whose job it is to root out corruption, abuse, and criminality in federal agencies – in clear violation of the law governing how that process works.

Impounding all grants and loans given by the federal government, a brutally cynical violation of the Separation of Powers and as such a direct assault on the Constitution itself, because – as one observer pointed out – if the President can unilaterally decide how much of or even whether money designated by Congress can be spent then you don’t need a Congress and all you have left is tyranny. There is nothing in the Constitution that says the President has any say whatsoever in this matter or any role other than to do what Congress has told him to do. For Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump to attempt to arrogate this power to himself is therefore an astonishingly serious crime that should have already produced an impeachment vote. A court blocked the impoundment and then apparently some Real Lawyers explained to the Trump Lawyers exactly how much shit was about to hit the fan and magically the cryptic two-page memo purporting to undo the basic structure of American government was “rescinded,” but the offense was still committed and should still be punished.

I’m not even going to go into the long list of agencies and programs that this assault on America would have crippled except to note that most Americans have no idea how much they depend on those agencies and programs.

He has issued Executive Orders by the dozens – the weakest and least effective form of federal power – in large part because he recognizes that not even the spineless buffoons masquerading as Republican Senators and Representatives would consent to them, an avalanche of cruelty, illegality, counterproductive backsliding, and/or petty vengeance.

Some things these Executive Orders have accomplished so far include raising costs for medications for Americans (something Biden had capped); restricting voting access; cutting funding for public health; protecting workers safety; unleashing the jackbooted thugs of ICE on the population – including, apparently, American citizens who just happen to have brown skin, as news reports have repeatedly demonstrated; directing his administration to seek vengeance against any official or state or local government who dares to protest this; suspending American participation in the Global Tax Deal (an international agreement designed to prevent multinational corporations from evading taxes); declaring several specious “emergencies” allowing him to expand the use of executive power; eliminating policies designed to reduce fossil fuel dependence and climate change; eliminating the professional civil service and replacing it with more minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves; canceling sanctions against right-wing Israeli groups; removing guardrails preventing the abuse of AI; forbidding any federal agency from making public comments unless approved in advance (did you know we are currently in the middle of the largest outbreak of tuberculosis in recent American history? No? Do you wonder why you don’t know?); and pardoning the treasonous insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the government the last time Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was in power.

This is just a selection, by the way. There’s more.

He’s also more or less eliminated any mention of – let alone protections for – anyone who is not a straight white man. He has officially declared that – contrary to all understandings of biology – there are only two genders and anyone who says otherwise will be punished. Bottom line, anyone who is LGBTQ+, non-white (especially if they speak Spanish), or female is now a target for official persecution from their own government.

He’s pulled out the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. He’s put tariffs of 25% on Mexico and Canada, two of our largest trading partners and the source of much of our food and energy. He’s threatened trade wars with countries that refused to do his bidding and threatened actual wars with countries whose land he’s decided he wants, some of whom are NATO allies. He’s interfered with the census in order to reshape the Electoral College. He’s declared he can give security clearances to anyone he wants for six months, a profoundly threatening move given the collection of rubes, foreign puppets, and security threats he’s assembled for his administration.

He even revoked the Equal Employment Opportunity order issued by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, freeing up the federal government to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, and gender.

So far, though, he has done nothing to reduce the price of eggs. We’re all waiting for that.

The bottom line of all of this is that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump is doing everything he can to turn the American republic into a tin-horn dictatorship with him at the center. Everything he has done so far has been to move power into his own hands. It’s a playbook we’ve seen before with dictatorships.

If the US Capitol mysteriously catches fire in the next few months, don’t say you weren’t warned.

The way to defeat a Gish Gallop is simply to wait it out until opportunities arise. Swat down the most obvious and harmful parts, but don’t run around madly trying to deal with it all at once. Soon enough it will run down. The wave of cruelty and sedition will crest, and there will be a period where Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves will try to consolidate their gains.

And this is when they will be vulnerable. This is when the counterattack in defense of the republic begins.

Stand firm. Do not be baited. Protect those who need to be protected and actively minimize harm whenever possible.

And then when the opportunity to respond effectively arises, take it.