The art of public speaking and winning arguments

Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking by Mehdi Hasan

Mehdi Hasan is one of my favourite journalists. And I’ve been following his work from his columnist/political editor days at the New Statesman, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, to his brilliant Oxford-style debate show at Al Jazeera English, to his time at the Intercept and Deconstructed podcast, his stint at Peacock and MSNBC, to now his long-overdued own media, Zeteo.

At many points in his brilliant career I thought to my self, if ever Mehdi writes a book, I will buy it and read it straight away, no matter on what subject it is. But I never thought that he would actually write a book about his number one trade secret: his ability to win arguments! My God, Mehdi, are you out of your mind? 🙂

So yes, this book feels like a cheat sheet of his “secret formula”, one that, for his own sake, makes me afraid that he’s revealing way too much for any potential opposition. And just like seeing the blueprint behind any magnificent work, the book does not disappoint one bit.

In this book he discusses a lot of debating techniques used by great orators of the past – from Cicero, to Churchill, MLK, Mandela and many others – which makes a fascinating read right from the start. He then back them up with the psychological theories behind the techniques and provides a lot of examples from history and from his own experience, the latter of which serves like a highlight reel to a great footballer’s career.

You know how the better the book, the longer it takes for us to read it and the longer our notes are? This book took me 4x longer than my usual reading pace and I took a s**t ton of notes from it (where it feels like I’ve highlighted like 60% of the book). But I’m not going to spill all of its trade secrets here. It is already “bad” enough that he reveals them all, I’m not going to contribute on spreading it.

But the key, non-in-depth and non-linear, summary is as follows:

  1. Research both sides of the argument.
  2. Know your audience.
  3. Grab their attention.
  4. Connect with them.
  5. Show emotions and not just facts.
  6. How to reach the heart? 1. Tell a story 2. Choose the words carefully 3. Show, not just tell.
  7. Show the receipt.
  8. Ad Hominem: Attack the argument AND the credibility of the person.
  9. The importance of listening.
  10. The rule of three.
  11. Produce a zinger.
  12. Use memorable one liners.
  13. Set up a booby trap.
  14. Use the opponent’s own comments or opinions from the past.
  15. Learn the dirty tricks used by others too, like the gish gallop technique: flooding the argument with utter nonsense but in an abundant amount so that the opponent doesn’t have the time to address it one by one (Donald Trump’s weapon of choice).
  16. Project confidence.
  17. Use humor.
  18. Use self talk.
  19. Keep calm.
  20. Practice your debates.
  21. Do your homework.
  22. Have a grand finale.

Now, almost everyone can come up with this logical list, in fact a lot of books have done it. But what sets Mehdi apart from the rest is his reasoning behind the techniques that he chose to use in many different situations, how he time them, and even how he prepared for them.

And to that end, Mehdi is one of the best in his field of work, one of the very best at the art of debating, and thus reading this book is like as if Serena Williams is writing a book about tennis, or Steven Spielberg writing about movie directing, or Warren Buffett writing about investing. It is simply a book that should be the main required reading for any serious debate club.