Rhetorical trick

Gish Gallop

Fire off so many weak claims so fast that no one has time to rebut them properly.

One weak claimA dozen more, faster than anyone can respond

Fire off so many weak claims so fast that no one has time to rebut them properly.

Example

In a five-minute debate turn, throwing out fifteen separate claims, each individually wrong but sounding plausible, so a reply can only address two or three.

Know a good example?

Suggest a real, sourced instance of Gish Gallop for this page. Submissions are reviewed before anything is added.

A gish gallop wins by volume, not by strength. Each individual claim might take two minutes to properly debunk, but takes ten seconds to state. Overwhelm the other side with enough of them and no reply can keep pace.

To an audience, an unanswered claim can look like an unanswerable one, even when it’s simply a matter of time.

The honest response is naming the pattern directly: pick the two or three weakest claims, debunk those properly, and point out that speed, not accuracy, is doing the work.

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