Some Clues as to Why the Press Sane Washes Trump and his Madness
Hint the Author of 1984 may have something to add
Mike Brock, recently wrote in a Suibstack a piece that Orwell would have been proud of. Brock points to the dishonest cowardly coverage given to a Trump speech by a New York Times reporter. As Brock writes “
“Trump gave a speech where he explicitly declared his hatred for political opponents—"I hate them [Democrats]. I really do. I hate them. I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate their country." He repeated conspiracy theories about election fraud. He promised to dismantle federal departments. He used dehumanizing language about immigrants and labeled political opponents as "communists" and enemies of America.” which the New York Times reported as As “Trump taking "a victory lap" in a "campaign-style speech" where he "celebrated the bill—and himself." They focus on polling numbers and political strategy. They analyze how Trump will "sell" his agenda to the public. They treat explicit hatred of political opponents as so unremarkable it barely merits mention, buried in a story about legislative tactics
As Brock remarks “This is textbook authoritarian rhetoric. When leaders of democratic countries express personal hatred for political opposition and question their patriotism, it represents a fundamental breakdown of democratic norms. When they repeat lies about election fraud, they're undermining the legitimacy of democratic processes. When they promise to eliminate government departments and remake institutions in their image, they're announcing authoritarian consolidation.
It’s not just the New York Times—The Washington Post is guilty of sane-washing Trump—take for example their coverage of Trump's massive tax and spending legislation. The Post consistently used his preferred branding without adequate context that it would cut $1 trillion from Medicaid and result in 17 million Americans losing health coverage, much coverage focused on procedural aspects rather than emphasizing the human impact of these cuts. The Post headlines often presented this as standard tax legislation rather than a historic transfer of wealth from poor to rich.
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Take also the Tariff Policy as "Economic Strategy" — Despite economists warning that Trump's tariffs would function as a massive regressive tax increase costing households $3,800 annually, much coverage has framed them as legitimate trade policy rather than economic warfare. Trump’s refusal to blink on tariffs raises the risks of an ugly endgame | CNN Politics +2 When Trump threatened 100% tariffs on China and suggested no concessions from allies would be sufficient, outlets often presented this as "tough negotiating" rather than an economically destructive policy. Economists Give Their Verdict on Trump's Tariff Pause - Newsweek
We deserve better from our supposedly independent press. We all need to draw attention to a pattern that has emerged of sanitized quotes designed to make Trump’s mad rhetoric sound sane and rational. This "sanewashing," as the New Republic pointed out “creates an alternate narrative that exists alongside unfiltered footage, contributing to what critics call "the erosion of our shared reality."
The consequences of this journalistic malpractice extend far beyond misleading headlines. By laundering Trump’s words in this fashion, the media is actively participating in the erosion of our shared reality. When major news outlets consistently present a polished version of Trump’s statements, they create an alternate narrative that exists alongside the unfiltered truth available on social media and in unedited footage. The consequence extends beyond misleading individual stories. As media critic Parker Molloy observed, this practice represents "a dangerous form of bias that creates a disconnect between reality and reported news," where Trump's quotes often defy conventional summation yet get reduced to seemingly reasonable policy positions.
We have to wonder whether the Times (the newspaper of record as it proudly likes to call itself) has learned anything from its history of covering totalitarian rule. As Ray Tyler reports, “The statistics tell the story succinctly. From 1939 to 1935, the Times published more than 23,000 front-page stories. Nearly 12,000 were concerned about World War II. A mere 26 were about the Holocaust.
“It was a bad judgment call,” says Alex Jones, a former Times reporter.
As Leff correctly observes, the Times usually buried stories relating to the Holocaust. The article it carried on the fall of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 was placed on the bottom of page six. “The way the Times treated the destruction of the ghetto was emblematic of the way it treated the annihilation of the Jews,” she says in a stinging indictment.
The same question arises in both instances—US today and Nazi Germany —cui bono (who benefits) from such recklessly dishonest reporting? Who are the lazy editors—the new Newspeak wordsmiths who are responsible for these sick distortions of reality?
Orwell had quite a lot to say about this matter— he wrote in one essay, The Freedom of the Press, that one reason why the press chooses to self-censor is due to some “tacit agreements that some truths are too difficult for the public to accept. The thought that people are not adult enough to accept the fact that they may have a mad, irrational, hate-filled man filling the office of the president may be for many editors to bear. If their jobs depend on pleasing some of the world’s richest men, who are also afraid of being sued by a politically weaponized Justice Department, we might have a more plausible reason.
As Orwell stated in that essay, "Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news—things which on their own merits would get the big headlines—being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact."
We are now past the time of playing nice with an administration that is bent on destroying not only the journalistic values of truth, honesty and objectivity but the underlying moral values related to a democratic society’s agreement that journalists earn their First Amendment protections by supporting the democracy that privileges them these freedoms. It is sad that we are living through a time when we must remind our fourth estate to defend our democracy rather than the fascist autocracy that would just as easily throw them all in jail if they had the chance.
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