“The sane-washing charge channels the critic’s exasperation at the fact that something like half the electorate still intends to vote for Trump, despite nearly a decade of his schtick. It implicitly suggests that voters would come to their senses and reject him if only the media would stop making him sound more normal than he really is. The likelier theory is that those voters are aware of the crazy and don’t mind it — and that the subset who somehow don’t know about it are not exactly avid news readers. An April poll by NBC News
found that voters who read newspapers preferred Joe Biden over Trump 70% to 21%, whereas Trump led 53% to 27% among people who said they don’t follow political news.”
—LO
