Sanewashing
Everybody does it. Even the publications that decry it.
There was a time — wasn’t there? — when an elected official who spoke incoherently would be mocked, his fitness for office questioned. Under such circumstances members of Congress of any party might be expected to suggest one or another Constitutional remedy.
There was a time — wasn’t there? — when anyone who spent most of his time mugging for the cameras (as opposed to, say, focusing on his actual job) and babbling nonsense answers to straightforward questions would be ridiculed and rebuked.
There was a time — wasn’t there? — when obvious lies, tautologies, and non-answers would be identified and unmasked; and any emperor of evasiveness exposed: the literal naked truth, per the fable, for all to see and acknowledge openly.
We do not live in such a time; and with each passing day it is harder to recall when, or even whether, we actually did. That, of course, is the point and the design: we become numb to and accepting of the incessant insults to our intelligence.
Joyce Vance’s important piece on how Trump is moving the Overton window — the link is here — describes one source of the decay; equally important is the role the media plays (or doesn’t). Ever since the “ride down the golden escalator” a decade ago the corporate press has treated the phenomenon as normal. But it isn’t, and should never be:
It is not normal for a politician, of any party, to describe his rivals as “vicious” or “nasty” or “terrible” (and Hillary Clinton fell into the trap).
It is not normal for a politician, of any party, to attack and accuse anyone who dares ask a question he would prefer not to answer — or to hear.
It is not normal for a politician, of any party, to describe every American city as a dystopian wasteland that only he can fix.
It is not normal to invent crisis after crisis after crisis, to describe emergencies that do not exist in order to impose “solutions” whose sole purpose is to intimidate; they do nothing to address the stated problem,
It is not normal for cabinet officers to attack the people they serve: while all senior executives serve “at the pleasure of the president” it is the People of the United States who employ them. Our taxes pay their salaries and their jobs are to make our lives better.
But the press, from the Washington Post and The New York Times to CBS and ABC, is inconsistent at best — and complicit, more often than not. Rather than speak truth to power, the instinct is to silence (or attempt to silence) those who do: just ask Terry Moran and Stephen Colbert. The New Yorker, too, will subtly sanewash some of the administration’s excesses. It’s almost impossible to avoid when journalists see their job as explaining and not describing or reporting. Explainers fall into a habit of superimposing a logic and reason that simply do not exist. They might instead try describing the chaos as chaos.
When I began thinking about this topic, I had some specific examples in mind; but each fresh outrage pushes the others out. That, of course, is the point: it’s the Overton window shifting, even for those of us who resist.
Descent down an escalator into a basement is too perfect a metaphor for where we’ve been (mis)led. Speak up; protest; be heard. We all have lives to live; but resist the urge to keep your head down until things change for the better. It’s the only way to put things right and to shift the window back to normal.