by Andrea Widburg
I learned a new term today: “Gish gallop,” which refers to a rhetorical device by which the speaker “attempts to overwhelm an opponent by presenting an excessive number of arguments, without regard for their accuracy or strength, with a rapidity that makes it impossible for the opponent to address them in the time available.” (Jeremy Boering explains it here, using Candace Owens as an example.)
That term applies to Rahm Emanuel’s technique in a short video clip of a discussion with former Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin. Using a rapid-fire sea of words, Emanuel claims Trump and his children got rich off the government, while conveniently overlooking the fact that he, like other prominent Democrats, went into government service poor and came out very, very rich, often in ways that seemed tied to access.
Here’s the video:
Admittedly, it’s a clip, so we don’t know what triggered his argument. What we know is Emanuel’s Gish gallop deflects attention from the truth: He became enormously wealthy after leaving government, and much of it was clearly related to his political connections.
Without taking a breath, Emanuel alleges that Trump is selling off the White House, that crony capitalism is in charge, that the Democrats are all about supporting the middle class, that the ballroom is somehow a product of corruption, that Trump’s and Howard Lutnick’s kids are enriching themselves from the government, that someone left office four billion dollars richer, and that Democrats who have won recent elections are moderates. Later, he states as fact that redistricting started in Texas.
There are a lot of things wrong with all of that.
Youngkin counters Emanuel’s claim about supposed Democrat moderates. He points out that these “moderates,” once in office, immediately enacted hard-left policies, with Virginia’s Governor Spanberger as Exhibit A. Rhetorically, this is smart. Given that Youngkin can’t counter everything Emanuel spouted, by addressing one obvious thing, he should be causing the audience to doubt Emanuel’s veracity.
Other things that would have been easy lines for attack are the claim that the Trump and Lutnick kids got rich off the government. They were already rich, and none of them have taken any government funds, directly or indirectly. They have pursued the same interests they always did, and done very well, too. Yes, having powerful fathers undoubtedly made them more attractive to investors of all stripes, but there’s no evidence that their fathers steered business their way. Meanwhile, standing in the middle of this argument is the entire Biden family.
As for leaving office $4 billion richer, if Emanuel is referring to Trump, it’s generally believed that, when Trump left the White House in January 2021, he was $1-$2 billion poorer than when he entered office. Fortunately, Trump made that money back (and more) through smart business decisions, not cronyism, during his four years in the wilderness, despite sustained political and criminal-justice attacks.
The statement about redistricting is a half-truth. The current round of redistricting started in Texas. However, as the recent Callais decision revealed, Democrat states have been doing purely racial redistricting since 1992. Moreover, blue states currently have limited redistricting opportunities because they have already shut out Republican representation in their states (which is legal, and some red states have done the same).
But the real issue isn’t what Emanuel said; it’s what he didn’t say, and it’s important because of his overarching contention that the MAGA movement has used the government to enrich its top people at the expense of taxpayers.
It used to be that people left government and kind of vanished. However, beginning in the 1980s and accelerating through today, people leaving high government positions achieve vast wealth—especially Democrats.
Book deals and speaking fees (and, for the Obamas, production fees) turned career politicians like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Al Gore, and Kamala Harris, none of whom were wealthy when they worked in government, into millionaires or even multimillionaires once in the private sector. Importantly, they didn’t create anything; their power cachet and the promise of access created this wealth.
Once, politicians this prominent—three presidents, one Secretary of State, and two vice presidents (three if you count Joe Biden for this role too)—retired after their service. They may not have sat on the front porch in a rocking chair as Truman did, but they were far enough away from politics that one didn’t get the sense that their vast post-politics wealth was a continued pay-off for political access.
Rahm Emanuel followed this same Democrat trajectory. He went from college to community organizing and then got involved in political work. In other words, he never worked in a real business.
Nevertheless, when he left the White House in 1998 and joined an investment banking firm, despite having no banking or investment experience, he made $16.2 million in just two years. Then, he rolled back into politics: Freddie Mac, Congress, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Obama’s Chief of Staff, Mayor of Chicago, and (under Biden) Ambassador to Japan. After his mayoral stint, he picked up another $13 million for consulting and media work.
Rahm Emanuel is living in a well-populated glass house, one made up of an entire class of Democrat politicians who spent years transferring money from taxpayers to cronies and then, once in the private sector, miraculously become staggeringly wealthy—and the only way, it seems, that he can cover that up is to talk really, really fast.
