U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts at the University of Kentucky's Rosenberg College of Law on July 13, 2022 (LawAnalyzer40526/Wikimedia Commons)
During Donald Trump's second presidency, the term "sanewashing" is often used to criticize politicians and journalists who normalize extremism and treat the abnormal like the normal. Far-right MAGA policies that are a radical departure from the conservatism of the past, according to many Trump critics, are being "sanewashed" in a way that downplays or ignores how extreme they are.
In an article published by The New Republic on New Year's Day 2026, Seattle University law professor Erin M. Carr stresses that politicians and journalists aren't the only ones who are guilty of "sanewashing"; some of the most dangerous "sanewashing" of all, she argues, is coming from the U.S. Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Roberts.
"Last fall, in the run-up to the presidential election, a new phrase began to circulate," Carr explains. "'Sanewashing' emerged as a term to describe the media's coverage of Donald Trump, which critics claimed made the rambling, often incoherent statements of the then-wannabe second-term president appear more rational than they actually were. Some argued this was contributing to the 'erosion of our shared reality and threaten(ing) informed democracy.' We've now been collectively living in a sanewashed political and legal landscape for nearly a year. For that, we have the Roberts Court to thank."
The Roberts Court, according to Carr, "has pioneered and perfected the practice" of "sanewashing."
"Sanewashing — defined as 'attempting to minimize or downplay a person or idea's radicality to make it more palatable to the general public' — has become a prominent, if entirely underappreciated, feature of the Roberts Court," the Seattle University law professor warns. "Relying on judicial sanewashing, the Roberts Court has eroded due process protections, political accountability, and civil rights, while simultaneously consolidating power for itself, corporations, gun owners, Christian conservatives, and state officials who owe their political influence to heavily gerrymandered districts. All this has been accomplished while the Roberts Court has sought to present itself as a neutral, nonpartisan institution, free from corporate interests and policy preferences and guided solely by constitutional and democratic principles."
Carr adds, "As the Roberts Court has transformed into a conservative policymaking body, it has maintained that it is merely fulfilling its constitutional mandate."
Carr contends that the High Court has "all but abandoned" stare decisis, meaning respect for precedent, with its "judicial sanewashing."
"It was this sanewashed strategy that allowed the Court to eviscerate campaign finance laws and eliminate federal courts' ability to prevent brazen partisan gerrymandering, ushering in today's redistricting arms race and dark money mania," Carr writes. "This sanewashing approach was also used as a basis to end race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions."
Read Erin M. Carr's full article for The New Republic at this link.