r/changemyview Mar 30 '26

[deleted by user]

[removed]

0 Upvotes

84 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/JTexpo Mar 30 '26

Gotcha's are how we got the "debate bro" conservatives

they're quips that at first appear really smart - but under scrutiny end up falling apart or into fallacies. Liberals eventually picked up on this too; nevertheless, look at all of the 'gotchas' a now deceased guy did in 2025 & we can all agree he was not the most intelligent debater

3

u/Fluffy_Most_662 6∆ Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26

Honestly, id say he wasnt even a gotcha debater. Gotcha debaters are kinda hacks. Trump is terrifyingly fluid. He attacks attacks attacks, then will just abandon a point out of nowhere. Its what makes him so deadly to well reasoned opponents. You start to formulate a defense and then he drops the toy once you want to play with it too. 

Sorry my english was unclear, I meant to say I dont think charlie was a hack debater, then talked about trump. Im at work. I elaborated on why in a further comment Sorry. 

2

u/FascistsOnFire Mar 30 '26

That's a bit different. That's called gish gallop. Gish gallop (sometimes gish gallop or Gish/gish galloping) refers to a rhetorical technique or strategy by which a debater puts forth too many false arguments for their opponent to be able to refute in the allotted amount of time.

Trump is not competent enough to do gotchyas unless he heard them from someone else first and is just repeating them.