Donald Trump is the worst candidate for president in history, by far. He has survived so many scandals, from the “small” like reposting sexist and racist stuff on social media, to the large like conviction of multiple felonies in a case involving paying off a porn star. For years it has literally been one thing after another. Hundreds of scandals. The problem with this for our side is one scandal replaces another day by day or week by week and most of the terrible things he has done fade away from the public consciousness. It is like the debate technique the Gish Gallop where a debater fills their time with one lie after another in rapid succession in order to prevent the other side from responding to any of them effectively.
The Arlington National Cemetery scandal cannot be allowed to fade from the public consciousness. Imagine if Barack Obama and his campaign team had done something similar. Fox News and right wing media would have reported on almost nothing else for the duration of the campaign. And because Obama was so scandal free, the mainstream media would have done the same. Democrats, especially surrogates for the Harris/Walz campaign, need to demand answers until we have them. Specifically:
1. Who was the Trump staffer that pushed aside, and possibly assaulted an Army official doing her job at Arlington? We need a name, and then to ask every day between now and the election why this person has not been fired by the Trump campaign.
2. Every day from now to the election demand Trump and Vance apologize to veterans and the American people for breaking the explicit rules/law that prohibit filming and political activity at Arlington.
3. Demand the resignation of Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung for saying the Army official doing her job was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.”
4. Demand the resignation of senior adviser Chris LaCivita for calling her a “despicable individual.”
5. In my opinion, VP Harris should open the debate with something like “the American people deserve to hear a debate, but first we deserve an apology from you for what you and your campaign did at Arlington.” Then she should not let it go. For the next 90 minutes continue to come back to it —“why haven’t you fired your staff member that assaulted a member of the United States Army trying to do her duty to protect Arlington’s hallowed ground?”
In his outline on how to defeat the Gish Gallop, Mehdi Hasan suggests:
- Because there are too many falsehoods to address, it is wise to choose one as an example. Choose the weakest, dumbest, most ludicrous argument that the galloper has presented and tear that argument to shreds ("the weak point rebuttal").
- Do not budge from the issue or move on until having decisively destroyed the nonsense and clearly made the counter point.
We cannot let this one go.