How do those of us who try to stay grounded in fact, reality, empirical evidence, etc. possibly counter the Gish Gallop (“overwhelming an opponent with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments”) of far-right extremists and pathological liars like Dave Brat?
For instance, take the following case – Dave Brat appearing this morning, as he does seemingly every other day, on Trumpster radio – for instance. In this case, literally almost every sentence Brat utters is verifiably, demonstrably, wildly FALSE. I’m not going to go through Brat’s lies one at a time, but just a few that are wild lies that have been debunked over and over again include:
1) that 7th CD Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger supposedly favors “open borders” and “sanctuary cities” for “criminals and drug dealers” (100% FALSE ON ALL COUNTS – BIG LIE ALERT! Among other things, I’m not aware of a single Democrat who favors “open borders”; there are no “sanctuary cities” in Virginia and certainly no Democrat supports them for “criminals and drug dealers”); 2) that Spanberger, a former CIA officer and federal law enforcement officer, wants to “work against federal law” (100% FALSE – BIG LIE ALERT!); 3) that Spanberger supposedly favors a “$32 trillion health care plan…single payer” (100% FALSE – BIG LIE ALERT – Spanberger has said a gazillion times that she supports Tim Kaine’s “Medicare X” plan to allow people the option of buying into Medicare); 4) the Republican budget-busting tax giveaway to the rich is “paid for” (WILDLY FALSE – BIG LIE ALERT – in fact, according to the authoritative, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, “the GOP’s signature tax law is projected to increase the national debt by $1.9 trillion between 2018 and 2028”).
I could go on all day with this, but you get the idea. Basically every word out Brat’s mouth is not just false, but WILDLY false. yet he just spews it out, over the airwaves, uncorrected by the Trumpster host (of course not!), and with almost no hope of ever getting the word out to the people who heard his wild/absurd lies that they were, indeed, wild/absurd lies. Which is exactly what the Gish Gallop is all about, after all – overwhelming with “as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments.” So to answer my initial question, how to respond to this? Simple: we can’t do it point by point, and the corporate “both sides” media certainly won’t do it, so for our part we just need to assume that every word out of the mouths of Dave Brat and others of his (far-right) ilk are lies. And then get out and work to elect reality-based Democrats, up and down the ballot, on 11/6, in 2019, in 2020 and beyond…until the Republican Party returns – if it ever does – to a semblance of sanity and basis in fact.
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
