Responding at the object level and not responding at all aren’t the only options. You can respond by saying you are not going to reply further, because the comment was a gish gallop, derailment, or whatever.
This can definitely work! But it’s often hard to do adroitly; there are situations where it comes off basically the same as not responding at all (e.g. in the eyes of the chunk of the audience that’s inclined to view non-response as cowardice, this sometimes comes off as cowardice plus trying to dodge the consequences of cowardice).
Responding at the object level and not responding at all aren’t the only options. You can respond by saying you are not going to reply further, because the comment was a gish gallop, derailment, or whatever.
This can definitely work! But it’s often hard to do adroitly; there are situations where it comes off basically the same as not responding at all (e.g. in the eyes of the chunk of the audience that’s inclined to view non-response as cowardice, this sometimes comes off as cowardice plus trying to dodge the consequences of cowardice).