Have you ever seen a republican dominate on a show like Real Time/Bill Maher? You know, the democrat or lefty will barely have a chance to speak before some odious toad like Ann Coulter starts to gish gallop — and the lefty never says “Hey, STFU asshole, it’s my turn!” No, the one making sense and quoting actual facts sits quietly and allows this inane bullshit to flow from the likes of Ann Coulter, or politely says “excuse me, I was speaking, let me finish”. Sometimes Bill will say “Let him/her finish” but it’s all very polite while the conservative spews nonsense . . .
The Gish Gallop (also known as proof by verbosity or the Trump tirade) is the fallacious debating tactic of simply drowning your opponent in a torrent of small, interlocking arguments intended to prevent your opponent from being able to rebut your conclusions in real time.
(interesting that this is now also called the Trump Tirade!)
So this red-faced lying conservative ahole sucks all the air out of the show, and everyone sits there stunned for a second at the end of the rant because thinking people realize it’s been total fact-free pucky. But there’s no way to respond to the sheer pucky-ness of it, so they move on. Bill: “Whatever. . . Okay new rules!!”
Why in the hell are people on the left so nice?
Just as people were voting on November 8, the Trump campaign went to court to ask the judge to seize the ballots and voting machines in a small Nevada polling place because they’d allowed all those brown folks to remain in line and vote even after official close of (early) voting. They didn’t care if they looked like idiots or racists or anti-democracy turds, they launched a shot across the bow: we will sue and kvetch and broadcast our conspiracy theories no matter what racist jerks we look like, and we will subvert the democratic process if we have to, if Hillary Clinton wins. We will do whatever it takes to make it difficult for her to govern.
Their lawsuit got thrown out of court since all of the voting apparatus and ballots have to be secured anyway, and they never bothered to ask the NV SoS — because they weren’t trying to make that happen. They were trying to make a point.
So then the unthinkable thing happened. Clinton lost by about 100,000 total votes in a small number of crucial states.
And what do the democrats do? Do they demand that the vote counting machines be audited to ensure they were properly calibrated? No, even though that would be a totally reasonable request. Do they demand that the ballots be canvassed to ensure the thousands of “undervotes” (ballots with votes on downticket races but not for president) were properly counted? No, even though a large number of undervotes typically prompts an audit.
No, they don’t say one word about it, just take it at face value. After all, they’d just spent a couple weeks outraged that trump said he wouldn’t accept the outcome. I mean, they don’t want to look like jerks, right? My guess is that is what his campaign was hoping for — sow enough anger that their voters wouldn’t accept the outcome, and let the democrats paint themselves into a self-righteous corner so they won’t protest it.
Do you think the hard right hasn’t figured out they can take advantage of the democrats’ desire to “go high”?
These guys embrace the most ridiculous conspiracy theories and nastiest rhetoric, whatever it takes to track mud through the scene and fog up the windows just enough to allow them to take credit for stuff they didn’t do and blame democrats for everything bad, and get voters to stay home in frustration and confusion. This year they pulled out all the stops, the Russians hacked into our voter databases and into our personal mail and broadcast it, and we know for a fact they were in contact with his campaign, and still the democrats are politely challenging his cabinet picks as if he has a total right to be picking a fucking cabinet!
Instead of making a huge case that something mighty serious has gone wrong, they’re appealing to this madman and his fundaloon veep to rise to the dignity of the office or some such. Really? These guys are concerned about the dignity of the office? We’re ignoring that a foreign government busted in on our election, fomenting chaos and suppressing the vote. We’re going to come up with a bunch of theories about “hidden” supporters and racist backlash and hurt white feelings — anything but point out the orange elephant in the room.
Someone messed with our election. We KNOW they did. We know who at least some of them are.
But we’re going to set that aside for the good of the country? Well, how did that work out for Al Gore? Step aside, don’t make a stink, for the good of the country, and we’re down a rabbit hole of wars (guns and culture) and economic and environmental ruin. He fucking WON. Was stepping aside right for the country, looking back?
It’s not an accident that the case that screwed him was Bush v. Gore, and not the other way around. It’s because they are willing to play as dirty as necessary in order to win, and in order to delegitimize their opponent in case he wins. They don’t care if it is messy and contentious and the neighbors might hear. And the democrats do. They’ll take the country to the brink, and the democrats want to keep things nice and orderly.
Why the hell not have each state recount their paper ballots, heavily audit their voting and counting machines? Considering that one candidate won the popular vote by millions (they’re not done counting) and the other won the electoral college by 100,000 votes or so, it’s not unreasonable for people in each of those states to ask for a complete audit and recount.
But do we really need to be reasonable? Can’t we just be jerks about it, make the states run through their paces, anyway, just because it really matters who actually won? (Even as I wrote this, I couldn’t bring myself to simply say, “can’t we be jerks just to be jerks because this guy is so awful, just to gum up the works wherever possible?”)
Do we want to legitimize this guy by standing by solemnly and politely while he’s sworn in, and sending sternly (but politely) worded letters to the Oval Office as he dismantles the country, and making proper speeches that go into the Congressional record for someone to dig up and read after the damage is done to figure out who actually tried to stop this guy?
Well, okay, I can’t do anything about getting recounts because I live in California and Clinton kicked his ass here, and we already count every vote and audit the machines. So I’ll be out protesting this guy, loudly.
But how about we pull out all the stops to keep him out of office and thwart his plans, and stop being afraid of setting aside our manners for a moment while we fight to keep our country intact.