The ‘sanewashing’ of Donald Trump

Balta is director of solutions journalism and DEI initiatives for The Fulcrum and a board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, the parent organization of The Fulcrum. He is publisher of the Latino News Network and a trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network.

We're just two weeks away from Election Day, and Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are sprinting from state to state in the race to the White House. However, increasing reports suggest Trump has been canceling some of his campaign events, with some critics attributing the decisions to fatigue and concerns about age.

At 78, Trump is the oldest presidential nominee in U.S. history. This adds an interesting dynamic to the campaign, especially considering the narratives he pushed about his previous opponent, President Joe Biden.

The Harris campaign is honing in on a straightforward message: Trump is mentally unfit for office. This argument centers on the belief that Trump's advanced age has contributed to a decline in his mental judgment, echoing similar criticisms that were leveled against Biden during his aborted campaign.

Supporters of this view point to a series of unusual incidents and meandering speeches from Trump as evidence of his mental deterioration, suggesting such a decline could pose a greater risk if he were to regain the presidency.

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A recent analysis by The New York Times highlighted changes in Trump's rally speeches over the past eight years, noting that they have become darker, longer and less focused, with an increased use of negative and profane language. Medical professionals have indicated such shifts could be indicative of aging. Additionally, he appears to have a tendency to stray from his main points without fully concluding his thoughts.

While some news outlets have accurately reported on Trump’s questionable behavior, many others are being accused of deliberately or perhaps inadvertently making Trump sound more coherent and normal than he appears on stage.

Parker Molloy, writing for The New Republic, recently commented on the phenomenon of "sanewashing" Trump's rhetoric. She argues that this practice is not only a failure of journalism but also a form of misinformation that poses risks to democracy.

According to Molloy, by consistently reinterpreting Trump's often incoherent and potentially harmful statements as standard political discourse, news outlets are neglecting their responsibility to inform the public and, in turn, providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former — and possibly future — president.

Sanewashing refers to the act of downplaying the more radical elements of a person or idea to make them seem more palatable to a broader audience. The term originated in a Reddit forum in 2020 during discussions about defunding the police.

The Poynter Institute, a journalism school and research organization, defines sanewashing as "the act of packaging radical and outrageous statements in a way that makes them seem normal." The institute suggests this practice is similar to greenwashing or sportswashing.

Columbia Journalism Review cites Urban Dictionary's definition as "attempting to downplay a person or idea's radicality to make it more palatable to the general public."

Journalist Aaron Rupar has been recognized for being among the first to apply the term in the context of media coverage of Trump's presidential campaign. Additionally, The Week reported that Matt Bernius, writing for Outside the Beltway, asked, "Where's the line between paraphrasing and 'sanewashing'?" He ultimately concluded that it represents "a dangerous form of bias."

Compounding the situation are Trump supporters who vehemently try to excuse Trump's often weird behavior. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) recently tried to sanewash Trump's comments in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Of course, this isn’t the first time mainstream media has been criticized for its coverage of Trump.

In 2016, then-CBS chairman Les Moonves famously said about Trump running for president, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” As long as Trump boosted their ratings, no coverage was considered too much.

And Moonves wasn't alone in compromising journalistic integrity and credibility, as then-CNN President Jeff Zucker also admitted, “If we made a mistake, [it was] we shouldn’t have put on as many [Trump] rallies as we did.”

Journalist Lee Fang, who was working with The Intercept in 2016, observed in an interview with Democracy Now!:

“Just across the board, whether it’s local TV or cable news, they treated this entire election season as a carnival, as a chance for tabloid politics. Rather than talking about the vital issues or the political biographies and the policy issues, they take whatever Donald Trump has tweeted, whatever insult he hurled, and treat it as a serious news story. And then — and rather than paying for reporters to go out and report the truth and talk to voters or to do investigative reporting, they have pundits, many of them compromised — many of the pundits that we’ve seen go on on television were quietly or secretly working for one of the campaigns — but then they have pundits go on TV and yell at each other and turn this into a food fight, rather than a substantive, thoughtful discussion of the issues.”

The Associated Press has presented various viewpointson the concept of sanewashing. Some media critics are calling for including more unfiltered quotes and clips from Trump.

Kelly McBride, senior vice president with Poynter, writes, “Let the quotes stand. Journalists have an impulse to make things easier for news consumers. That’s fine when translating the economic jargon from the chair of the Federal Reserve because it’s truly helpful. But it’s a mistake to try and make sense where there is none.”

McBride points to an article from The 19th on proposed solutions to the economic hardships of child care as an example of how journalists can produce fair and accurate reporting.

She explains, "The 19th asked the campaign to clarify and was rebuffed. There is no way to make sense of what Trump is saying. It is truly incomprehensible. Smartly, The 19th doesn’t even try. And that’s the brilliance of the story. The reporter tells the reader that Trump’s answer was rambling, then shows the reader precisely what Trump said."

There’s no doubt that, as The New York Times' Maggie Haberman told NPR, “Trump is a really difficult figure to cover because he challenges news media processes every day, and he has for years.” That includes a well-known tactic by Trump to manipulate news media by evading direct questions and flooding the zone with his agenda, as seen in the disastrous 2023 CNN town hall.

Whether Trump’s incessant rambling is by design or a sign of concern, the American public needs an accurate portrayal of him. With just a few days remaining before voters make their decision regarding Trump's presidency, this includes presenting complete quotes, regardless of their nature. Anything short of this from journalists, pundits or lawmakers is simply misleading.