I’m not writing about tomorrow’s debate, other than to explain briefly why I’m not writing about it: It’s going to happen, I have no control over it, and by Wednesday morning we’ll all know how it came out. Speculating about who has the advantage or what strategy each candidate should adopt serves no purpose. Plenty is being written about this elsewhere, if you want to spend your time that way.
This week’s featured post is about “sanewashing” — a word I didn’t know last week that seems to be everywhere this week. Sanewashing is when a reporter takes in some insane or incoherent Trump statement and refines it into a solid policy point to highlight for readers. The mainstream press has been sanewashing Trump for years now, as when it turned Thursday’s word-salad answer to a question about child care into advocating tariffs. I believe that Trump-speaks-in-word-salads is the news to be gleaned from that event, and not his support for tariffs.
But now that there’s a word to describe the phenomenon, it should be harder to get away with. We can hope.
Anyway, “The Word of the Week: Sanewashing”, should be out around 10 EDT. The weekly summary should appear noonish.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
what do you call the wash of a lifetime of political statements and opinions and actions that Kamala is doing right now? Insanewashing maybe ? How can you be on record and in practical charge of the presidency as senile Biden is hiding in basement or on his beach / and now present programs in total conflict with left radically of her lifetime pretending she is right of center ? Sanders said it out loud she can’t be elected based on her record so screw the record invent another lie
Speaking of word salad…
It made more sense in the original Russian.
The difference is that Trump pretends to present a policy or a position, which he later changes, or which it is clear he has never supported in any way. Kamala actually has a past history of political performance, and it can be stated rationally.
Is this Democracy an illusion, what with the electoral college ?
It has been noted that Trump speaks like an ordinary person, not like a politician (as does Tim Walz, incidentally). In Trump’s case though, it’s increasingly like the drunk at the end of the bar.