Attempting to downplay a person or idea'
s radicality to make it more palatable to the general public. This is often done by claiming that the radicals are taken out of context,
don't truly represent the movement, or that opponents' arguments about its severity are
wrong. Oftentimes, the person doing the sanewashing isn't
radical themselves—they may be doing so because they genuinely
don't believe the movement to be radical, or are trying to justify to themselves how they can support a radical movement.
A portmanteau of "sane" + "whitewashing" (portraying something as better than it is). Coined on the /r/neoliberal subreddit in late
2020 to describe progressives who misrepresent radical stances.
"/r/antiwork isn't about not wanting to
work at all, it's about wanting to reform wage labor to make it less exploitative."
"Stop sanewashing it, I found a video of the head moderator who says
20 hours of
dog-walking is too labor-intensive."