• DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I feel like I’ve seen this headline (and slight variants) multiple times in the past few weeks. It’s almost a Gish Gallop statement, because where do you begin?

    It implies that he had a grip 4/8 years ago.

    It implies that he ever had a grip.

    It implies that his public statements are weirder now than before, when they’ve always been bizarre.

    It implies that Donald Trump’s policy positions are peculiar to him, when really he’s basically reflecting what Republicans have been trying to push on us for decades.

    • unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      No, he’s never had a grip, but there’s been a noticeable change since even 2016. As there was a noticeable change to 16 from ten years prior. He’s just gradually declining. It means nothing for his base that they are voting for a Vance succession, apparently.

    • ccdfa@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Just to be clear—I know it’s said that this is almost a gish gallop statement—but it absolutely is not.

      Since we’re just talking about the headline and not the contents of the article, then this is just a statement. It’s not an argument so it can’t be a gish gallop. If we take the implications of the statement as premises and the headline as a conclusion, then this is just one singular argument which also means it cannot be a gish gallop. Any argument will have a number of premises. Where do you begin? At any of the premises. Demonstrating that the premises are false will show the conclusion to be false. By definition a gish gallop is a great number of arguments that overwhelm an opponent. One argument simply cannot be a gish gallop.