Win Every Argument

 

Mehdi Hasan, “Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking,” Henry Holt & Co., 2023, 266 pp..

“Win Every Argument,” by MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, has been published at the right time, speaking to a moment when many people find themselves drawn into many arguments.

Although Hasan’s book is about showing readers all the tools and tactics that the world’s greatest speakers and debaters employed, I found his other observations compelling as well.  He offers an entertaining primer on rhetorical techniques, including what Aristotle called appeals to logos (reason), pathos (emotion) and ethos (authority). Logos is the basic stuff of argument: Present the facts and draw connections between them. But it would be fantasy to think that the facts can speak for themselves: “The reality is that pathos beats logos almost every time.”

Not that you can get away with making things up willy-nilly; unless you are Trump and expert at the “Gish Gallop.”  You have to do your homework. You have to show up prepared. On his show, Hasan is known for confronting his guests (or “opponents”) with factual evidence, pinning them down with details so that they can’t wriggle out of a question and are left to squirm. Like Rambo, he says, he loves to lay a booby trap. “  He goes on to describe how satisfying it is to watch the crestfallen look on his opponent’s face once the trap has been sprung.

When it comes to the kind of argument Hasan has in mind, drama is crucial. A well-timed pause, some steady eye contact, a dazzling show of confidence — all of this, he says, will hold your audience’s attention and earn its good will. Even an ad hominem attack can serve your purposes when done right: Pointing out your opponent’s hypocrisy or conflict of interest can effectively erode that person’s authority, rendering their most high-minded arguments suspect. Hasan’s opponents don’t necessarily feel good after debating him

Needless to say, the debates that Hasan writes about seem to meet certain conditions — you have a case to make; your opponent has a case to make; you’re more or less equally matched; and whatever you say won’t impinge on the relationship between you (and even if it does, you don’t care).

My Notes:

The Gish Galloper.  The Gish gallop is a term for a technique in which a debater attempts to overwhelm an opponent by excessive number of non-stop arguments, without regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott and named after the creationist Duane Gish, who used the technique frequently against proponents of evolution.

Pg. 160:  Donald J. Trump is and was a master of the Gish Gallop.  For instance, in the first presidential debate in 2020 between Biden and Trump, moderator Wallace asked the two candidates, “How confident are you that this will be a fair election…And what are you prepared to do to reassure the American people that the next president will be the legitimate winner of this election?”

Trumps response:  “So when I listen to Joe talking about a transition, there has been no transition from when I won.  I won that election.  And if you look at crooked Hillary Clinton, if you look at all of the different people, there was no transition, because they came after me trying to do a coup.  They came after me spying on my campaign.  They started from the day I won, and even before I won.  From the day I came down the escalator with our first lady, they were a disaster.  They were a disgrace to our country, and we’ve caught em, We’ve caught em all.  We’ve got it all on tape.  We’ve caught em all.  And by the way, you gave the idea for the Logan Act against General Flynn.  You better take a look at that, because we caught you in a sense, and President Obama was sitting in the office. 

He went on like this over-running his two minute allotted debate time.  In a debate you are not permitted to interrupt, unlike facing a TV interview.  Fact check of his entire tirade:

There was a transition after Trump won.

Hillary is not a criminal

She did not launch a coup against him

There was no spying on his campaign.

No one was caught.

Nothing was on tape.

Mail-in ballots were not a disaster.

There was no major voter fraud.

There were no ballots found in creeks.

Everybody did not get two ballots.

Nothing happened in Manhattan, New Jersey, or Virginia.

No one can vote after election day.

The election was not rigged.

 

Note:  The Gish Gallop is also useful to people with a platform with no opposition.  Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh are potent examples.  Only death (Rush) or de-platforming (can shut them down.)

 Pg. 195:  Consider this: when you’re trying to change someone’s feelings or attitudes, your words account for just 7 percent of your overall message.  Seven percent.  That’s it.  In contrast, your tone of voice accounts for 38 percent of it, and your body language accounts for a colossal 55 percent.  This is the famous 7-38-55 rule, or concept that Albert Mehrabian, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, came up with in 1971 in his book Silent Messages.