The Frequent Sanewashing of a Declining Trump
The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but the road to fascism is paved with network news and cable news. Right behind them are influencers, podcasters, and X posters.
A study by Reuters found that in the United States, 54% of us say that social media is our go-to source of information in 2025.
Reuters, which is a global news agency known for its comprehensive coverage, operates the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, a research center at the University of Oxford that analyzes trends in media, journalism, and digital news consumption. Every year, they release an exhaustive study of the nature and trends of the media industry, along with the Financial Times’ report on technology trends fueling the larger news consumer’s changing world.
Almost daily, as I write the Adverse Action newsletter, I’m confronted with at least a passing irritation at the news that appears on broadcast, or Mainstream, media. Some call it “legacy media,” others call it “corporate-owned media.” Whatever term is applied, it refers to large news organizations who present enormous challenges to those of us with a specific point of view: We observe a blatant blind-eye turned to in-depth coverage of investigative vs. opinion vs. event-driven stories that “sanewash” extreme statements by either framing them with normalizing language, diminishing their immediate implications, or understating their second-order consequences.
Sanewashing, a term that has gained popularity since 2024, can be better understood with a few examples.
One, consider a morning broadcast I watch at least partially during the morning hours on weekdays. ABC News produces it, and it’s streamed freely via their Apple TV and online-connected phone and tablet apps.
First, there’s a highly formulaic approach to the amount of time given to specific segments. Some of the influences for that timing are the back-end contractual agreements with advertisers, who pay for their advertising to have maximum impact on specific demographics.
These advertisements vary between broadcast and cable news sources. According to one study, typical major networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC carry “ad loads,” or the amount of time spent during a typical half-hour broadcast, of between 12 and 15 minutes. Cable news streaming carries ad loads between 15 and 22 minutes per half hour, as evidenced on channels such as Fox News (which, technically, is not a news broadcaster but an entertainment channel), Newsmax, and others.
This leaves a very small, minute-by-minute schedule within which news producers fit content that keeps viewers from changing the channel or switching off the streaming service (or redirecting to somewhere else).
This amounts to a well-studied schema to capture and retain viewer attention, often geared around measured tolerances and appetites for specific categories of news: World news and national news get a fixed window within the ABC window, usually a maximum of 25-35% of the 15-minute “window” the show is not broadcasting advertiser material.
Consider the larger landscape of dropping TV usage behind this survival strategy from the major networks, as their market share has diminished:
Viewer attention begins to wane after approximately 6-8 minutes on a given subject. Next up are more localized stories, ranging from weather to personal-interest stories, each event-driven in nature. A relatively recent innovation adopted by most networks is including “X millions affected” in relation to severe weather, even if the weather only presents a mild or even unlikely chance of happening.
Lastly, the formula calls for a 10-12% mix, usually at the end of the 15 available minutes, for “entertainment,” “Hollywood”, “Outrageous,” or “Humor” stories. These stories amount to almost no cognitive load placed on the viewer. They span the range of possibilities, such as funny animal behavior (a lesson from social media – see videos of kittens on TikTok), to unbelievable acts of skill by performers, to heartwarming stories about survival or community support around the victim of a tragic event.
The “sanewashing” I referred to at the beginning of this segment has to do with how news is framed. In the world of Donald Trump, the second-term president, two strategies are in play at all times, as I’ve observed:
“Flood the Zone:” This strategy, first phrased by Steve Bannon, a Trump supporter, refers to so much newsworthy information being released by the Trump regime that it overwhelms the parameters identified above. It’s worth noting that an executive order (EO) with ten implications all targeted to Latino or black voters immediately exceeds the available time to even relay them, even if an anchor were to read a direct on-air announcement of the EO text. Even more far-fetched are its odds for comprehension by the average viewer when a legal analysis of any complexity is required.
The second strategy I’ll call “Overwhelmingly Propagandist Narrative,” which is used by the Trump administration to ensure the reversal of norms is often flipped upside-down, making a straight retelling of facts nearly impossible. This is a form of false-news propaganda, where things done under the pretense of one thing mean something entirely different, yet are reported at their face value due to the likelihood a news network will be sued for defamation or other thinly-veiled threat. Examples here include the Trump reach into the “elite” universities around the country to withhold funds, done under the pretext of anti-semitism, but are clear insertions of the regime into meddling in the affairs of colleges never before subject to the level of intrusiveness the Regime intends.
The latter strategy works especially well when loyalists are positioned throughout the government, and dissenting views are punishable by termination or career tarnishment. Stories on X will repeat the stated intent of the Washington, DC occupation by military under the guise of “community safety” by personnel in an endless “echo chamber” of repetition and further sentiment bias. Challenges will be overridden by the algorithm (try mentioning a Substack article there, and see what happens to the URL!) and by human interference, where “thumb on the scale” approaches are frequently used.
Sanewashing Trump in Recent History
Where this topic hits closest to home is quite possibly in the most recent past. But before we go all-in on that timeframe, I want to bring a piece of recent news in history, specifically from September 5, 2024.
Moms First CEO and Founder, Reshma Saujani, while Trump was at the Economic Club of New York, asked him a relatively simple question:
“If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable, and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”
If you want to watch it in real time on C-SPAN, here it is:
The response was jaw-dropping to anyone expecting a simple yes or no answer. Instead, we got this:
[Rambling about Rubio and daughter Ivanka]… But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that—because, look, child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t—you know, there’s something … You have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.
But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to, but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.
Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have—I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country—because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.
So, Trump sometimes wanders around in his responses. That’s nothing newsworthy. But when he went on, continuing to answer a question about making childcare affordable, he said:
But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.
We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.
And with that, as any not-insane person would realize, we had a full-on display of someone either high as a kite or just working with far from a full set of marbles.
The Sanewash
The Associated Press covered Trump's response in an article headlined "Trump suggests tariffs can help solve rising child care costs in a major economic speech," framing his answer as a policy proposal where higher tariffs on foreign imports would generate revenue to address childcare expenses, paraphrasing it as a coherent economic strategy without noting its disjointed or nonsensical elements, such as unrelated tangents on fraud and classroom sizes.
The New York Times, in its initial report on the speech, used the headline "Trump, in Economic Speech, Attacks Biden and Harris on Taxes," focusing on his criticisms of opponents and proposed tax cuts while completely omitting the childcare question and his rambling response, thereby presenting the event as a standard policy address without acknowledging the incoherence that dominated parts of it.
The Washington Post's coverage featured the headline "Trump pitches tax cuts, tariffs and crypto in economic policy speech," emphasizing his proposals on taxes, trade, and cryptocurrency as key takeaways, with no mention of the childcare query or Trump's evasive, word-salad reply, effectively normalizing the speech by excusing or ignoring its erratic aspects in favor of a polished summary of economic themes.
The Complicit Networks
The more this happens, which is increasing in frequency with what appears to be (at least) cognitive decline of Trump, the more we’re being asked to believe glossed-over, sanewashed.
On July 15, 2025, during a speech at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh, President Trump delivered a rambling, off-topic word-salad response when discussing economic investments and energy policy, including claiming $16 trillion in U.S. investments (far exceeding the actual GDP of under $30 trillion), struggling to recall names of aides and representatives (e.g., asking “Where’s Dan?” about Rep. Dan Meuser and nervously laughing off the absence), mispronouncing staff names, and inserting a bizarre tangent about the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski as a "great student" who "didn’t work out too well," all while veering from the topic of AI and energy infrastructure.
Here are two clips stitched together from the actual event:
CNN sanewashed this by focusing solely on the positive announcement in its coverage, headlining it as "Tech and energy giants pour billions to turn Pennsylvania into an AI hub" and portraying the event as a successful policy rollout of over $90 billion in investments without acknowledging any incoherence, gaffes, or off-topic diversions.
Trump’s claim during his speech that his uncle, Dr. John G. Trump, knew Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, as a "great student" is implausible because John Trump, a professor at MIT, died in 1985, when Kaczynski was already 43 and had left academia after earning his PhD at the University of Michigan in 1967, with no record of attending MIT or studying under John Trump. Kaczynski’s academic career and subsequent isolation in Montana make any personal connection with John Trump impossible, as their paths did not overlap.
Similarly, Fox News sanewashed his incoherent speech through excusing narratives, emphasizing in headlines like "Trump announces $90B in energy and AI investments at Pennsylvania summit" and framing it as a triumphant push for American innovation and jobs, with segments highlighting economic benefits while omitting the rambling elements entirely, effectively presenting it as a coherent, strategic address.
That’s a Wrap
Today, we focused on how Mainstream Media is actively assisting the Trump regime in its retelling of propaganda, using the tools at its disposal to normalize that which is not normal. I encourage you to listen and watch with scrutiny, especially those outfits that claim to be “independent.” If you’re not sure, give me a holler on a DM and I’ll dig up information and send it to you on any particular group. My goal is to give you information you can fact-check easily (see sources/links below), and be ultra-transparent about where my ideas and analysis that are opinion-based come from.
This Sunday, I hope you’ll take some time to reflect on a few simple things. I’d ask you to consider, in a time when the future seems uncertain, the things that have a satisfying permanence in your life. It might be people who’ve been dedicated friends, or family members who either support you or are the source of fond memories. Consider unplugging from your digital footprint – the connections you have to social media platforms, television, computers, and the like. It can be very helpful to get away for an hour or so to a quiet place, but often we have to make that effort to make the time. I hope you’ll do that today, for your own benefit.
Be Well,
Rick Herbst
August 24, 2025
LINKS
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2025-06/Digital_News-Report_2025.pdf
https://www.digitalnewsreport.org
https://www.ftstrategies.com/en-gb/insights/2025-journalism-predictions-ft-strategies
https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/mussolini-press
https://nuitalian.org/2023/04/27/fascism-rise-to-power-and-media-manipulation/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-journalists-covered-rise-mussolini-hitler-180961407/
https://www.britannica.com/event/March-on-Rome#ref276619?xid=PS_smithsonian
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691644974/mussolini-and-fascism
https://lithub.com/jeff-sharlet-on-sanewashing-and-fascism/
https://www.cjr.org/data/fascism-cable-news-data.php
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/09/media-trump-sane-washing/679849/
https://apnews.com/article/trump-economy-harris-corporate-taxes-15ba5ecfdf5e907bd9b2c349b07222b8
https://newrepublic.com/article/185530/media-criticism-trump-sanewashing-problem
Yikes! There’s simply no better word for it. How do you represent nonsense with words that make sense? In that sense, intelligible reports on nonsensical word salad meanderings are by definition misrepresentations. So the media, or anyone trying to navigate the current confusion, is forced to choose between sane washing and replicating nonsense. How did we get to such a place as this?
While I enjoy reading great articles such as this one, I get a little annoyed with some that make claims without providing both primary and secondary sources. I often have to do research on the claims to find there is no certified evidence. Thanks for the professionalism shown!