Jeff Sharlet on 'Sanewashing' and Fascism

Nonfiction writer Jeff Sharlet joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss how mainstream media outlets sanitize Donald Trump’s rhetoric in their reporting rather than straightforwardly describing his words and behavior, an approach recently dubbed “sanewashing” by The New Republic’s Parker Molloy. Sharlet analyzes the term’s usefulness and also its limitations; talks about the need to describe fascism using the word itself; and reflects on who is now at the center of political discourse and who is at the fringe. He also considers whether popular new media influencers like the MeidasTouch Network and KZbinr Brian Tyler Cohen are really filling the need to describe Trump as he is. He reads from his book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War.

[@MaryDeanDotCom]

Meidas Touch focuses on LEGAL issues - that is their niche - and they do a great job explaining every day‘s courtroom twists and turns to a non-lawyer audience.

[@dp9ch]

The brothers also do a lot of reporting out the MAGA-sphere. Ben almost lives inside Trumps social feed and fundraising emails at this point. There are a lot of specialized legal shows on MTN but their flagships are no longer focused on legal matters alone, as I see it.