How Can A Felon, Insurrectionist, Putin-Loving Grifter Rapist Be Tied in the Polls with VP Harris?
What is "sanewashing", how to combat it, and the 411 before tomorrow's debate.
TLDR: The bad news is the media is sanewashing Trump to keep the horserace narrative alive and well. Meanwhile, they are sharpening their knives for Harris and secretly hoping for an upheaval at the Harris-Trump debate tomorrow to drive clicks.
The good news is that we do not have to fall for it! Talk to your friends and family and remind them how dangerous (and weird) Trump is, donate to grassroots organizations, and sign up to GOTV. Our future will come down to whether WE (you and me) cared enough to do the work so let’s get to it. (See action items below!)
With presidential polls basically tied in Swing States, we keep hearing people lament, “How is this even possible?”
Three words: Mainstream media sanewashing.
As Parker Molloy explains, the mainstream media has spent years sanitizing, normalizing and “sanewashing” Trump’s corruption, hate, violence, and cognitive decline. It’s not just his demented rants either; the media has normalized his clear, unequivocal threats, like his mass deportation program that would be “bloody” and his commitment to imprison anyone he thinks “cheated” in the election.
As the Columbia Journalism Review stated: “If sane-washing the incoherent things Trump says is a problem, then so is failing to proportionately cover his all-too-coherent threats.” When Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and people would still vote for him — he wasn’t lying. Because he knows that the mainstream media has a vested interest in keeping him alive electorally.
Why is this important? For one, as we prepare for the first debate between Harris and Trump, we need to understand that media companies are looking for clicks. They benefit from Democrats’ fear, not their joy, and are hoping for an upset tomorrow night that will trigger liberals’ Biden-Trump debate PTSD and reinvigorate the horserace narrative and liberal clicks.
Of course, Democrats are an easy target for farming engagement. Mainstream media made millions from the Biden-Trump debate and the month-long effort to drive Biden from the race with just their headlines. And after two months of brat summer, the debate presents a fresh opportunity for mainstream media to reclaim the narrative after it was derailed by the explosion of excitement around the Harris-Walz campaign.
So what does that look like?
Setting high expectations for Harris and low expectations for Trump. The NYT and WAPO have run many headlines suggesting Harris must “prove” herself tomorrow night. She has to be perfect, “presidential” and not “prosecutorial”; “crisp” and “controlled”, but also warm and relatable. Meanwhile, Trump could take a dump on TV while incoherently rambling about batteries and sharks and the media would shrug.
Fact-checking with false equivalencies. Although they will be fact-checking both candidates, anything Harris says that is not 100% supported (according to them) will be covered as equal to Trump’s blatant lies. Don’t believe us? Look at the two headlines below — the first suggests Harris made many “false and misleading claims” at the DNC (she did not) while the second suggests an analysis of factual statements made at the RNC (despite hundreds of false and misleading claims by Trump and others).
Post-debate coverage will be a sh*tshow. The NYT, CNN and WaPo have already paraded the tired tropes of Harris as a tough, difficult and unlikeable female leader (see below) - just like they did with Hillary Clinton, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and many other women. As David Wasserman said in his interview with the New Yorker, Harris has benefited from a favorable news environment which will come to an end between now and November 5th and that he’d rather be Trump because of it. (This is laughable because Trump always has a favorable news environment as evidenced by the fact that they have largely left Trump alone despite his constant, egregious words and actions.)
As journalists Parker Molloy, Greg Sargent, Lawrence O’Donnell, Josh Marshall, Jennifer Rubin and many other independent journalists have pointed out, mainstream media is not a neutral media. It is not a liberal media. Mainstream media is owned by billionaires in need of a horse race to drive revenues and they will be coming for Harris.
So what can we do? A LOT.
Volunteer to GOTV. It’s time to start talking directly with voters (postcards aren’t going to be enough now that early voting is beginning). Everything you need to volunteer to GOTV is right here. (If you have questions, message us and know that whatever discomfort and inconvenience you feel now will be far worse if we lose in November.)
Donate NOW and generously to grassroots GOTV orgs. Harris-Walz raised a whopping $360M in August! Now, it’s time to donate to grassroots GOTV groups that are essential to winning competitive races.
Here’s our list of donation recommendations, but if you want to donate to one group — we recommend Movement Voter Project which invests in Swing State grassroots orgs with proven track records.
If you can, please donate to these competitive House races, these CRITICAL state races (think battleground state governor, judges, AGs, SOS) (fundraiser Charles Gaba does a great job of researching key races and all the money goes to candidates) and FL’s Amendment 4 initiative to protect abortion. (Florida is in play! Why? The new head of FL Dem Party Nikki Fried has energized and organized the party, abortion and weed are on the ballot, and Floridians are upset that DeSantis, Scott and other MAGA reps have done nothing about rising insurance (due to climate change) while banning books and attacking LGBTQ kids).
Talk to voters, friends and family. Tell them about why this election is important to you and ask what is important to them. Here are talking points on Kamala and Tim, for the ambivalent young voter (scroll to middle), and why Dems and Republicans are not the same.
Share this excellent “prebuttal” to the debate from KamalaHQ!
Join the Women for Harris Debate Prep call tomorrow (even if you’re not a woman - all are welcome)!
Check out this woman’s experience canvassing.
Follow journalists, writers, commentators and media that value integrity and democracy, not just clicks. For just the next two months, get on Twitter or Threads and follow/create a list with only these accounts (here’s a how to video). (We’re telling you this is the best way to get accurate news.) If you don’t want to make an account, bookmark these pages in you browser and you can easily flip back to them.
Kamala HQ
Courier News
The 19th News
Philadelphia Inquirer (yes, even if you aren’t in PA)
Guardian US
The New Republic
Talking Points Memo (Josh Marshall)
Aaron Rupar - Public Notice (Substack)
Brian Tyler Cohen
Greg Sargent
Katie Phang
Keith Boykins
Lawrence O'Donnell
John Harwood
Julia Davis
Eugene Scott
Will Bunch
Scott MacFarlane
Catherine Rampell
Stephanie Ruhle
Carl Quintanilla
Justin Wolfers
Judd Legum - Popular Information (Substack)
Ahmed Baba (Rantt Media)
Kaivan Shroff
Jennifer Rubin
Joyce White Vance (Substack)
Heather Cox Richardson (Substack)
Jay Kuo (Substack)
Jessica Craven (Substack)
Robert Hubbell (Substack)
Simon Rosenberg (Substack)
Robert Reich (Substack)
Meidas Touch News (YouTube and all platforms)
Allison Gill - Daily Beans podcast/Mueller She Wrote (Twitter)
We can do this, friends - we just have do it! And when we talk to voters, we win!
In your corner,
HH & ML
I would also suggest MeidasTouch for your Threads news list!
And Hopium (Simon Rosenberg), and Robert Reich’s and Frank Schaeffer’s substacks.