Meaning of sanewashing | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The practice of restating someone’s rhetoric to render it more palatable or acceptable.
   uncountable
2. The attempt to downplay the radicality of a person or idea to render it more palatable to the general public.
   uncountable

Examples

“This “sanewashing” of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form⟳ of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform⟳ the public and are instead providing cover⟳ for increasingly erratic behavior from a former—and potentially future—president.”

“There’s a hot new term doing the rounds among media critics: “sanewashing.” The term itself actually isn’t new, and it wasn’t born in media-criticism circles, per se; according to Urban Dictionary, it was coined in 2020 on a Reddit page for neoliberals..and meant “attempting to downplay a person or idea’s radicality to make⟳ it more palatable to the general public.””

CEFR level