The Trump Sanewashing Begins Anew
New year, same media strategy: Downplay Trump’s most dangerous, extreme ideas as “trolling” or even “branding.”
President-elect Donald Trump speaks to members of the media during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on January 7, 2025, in Palm Beach, Florida.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
I made the mistake of turning on the television Tuesday afternoon during Donald Trump’s unhinged press conference. It sounded like the greatest hits of his failed presidency—complaining about the pressure in showers and toilet bowls designed to save water and the danger of windmills. I switched it right off. Apparently, I missed some new malignant Trumpisms, including threatening to use military force to annex Greenland and take back the Panama Canal (it wasn’t clear if that threat extended to his plan to make Canada our 51st state) and a pledge to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
When a reporter asked if he’d rule out using military force against Greenland and Panama, Trump replied: “I can’t assure you. You’re talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can’t assure you on either of those two, but I can say this. We need them for economic security. The Panama Canal was built for our military. I’m not going to commit to that now. It might be that you’ll have to do something.”
Predictably, MAGA Republicans applauded Trump’s swagger. The New York Post hailed his belligerent nationalism as “The Donroe Doctrine.” Representative Brian Mast, chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, tweeted: “It’s all American to dream big. It’s un-American to be scared of big dreams. I for one could not be more proud that President @realDonaldTrump has the biggest visions for America.”
Maybe as predictably, some journalists quickly moved to deride the notion that Trump would do anything as crazy as use military force against Greenland, which is a territory of Denmark, which is an original signatory of NATO, which would commit the rest of NATO to its defense. Yes, it’s crazy, but so is much of what he promises. And in his second term, he deserves no benefit of the doubt.
CNN analyst Maggie Haberman of The New York Times normalized Trump’s Greenland proposal, saying, “This idea of acquiring Greenland for strategic purposes has happened for decades,” she said. “It’s never totally gone away.” In fact, there have been no serious discussions of the US acquiring Greenland (Pat Buchanan doesn’t count) since World War II, although the US did commit to a defense pact with Denmark. Haberman acknowledged that Trump “is in an expansionist mindset,” but dismissed his talk of annexing Canada as a “troll.” On the question of whether he’s serious about using military force in either Greenland or the Panama Canal, she punted: It “caught a lot of people by surprise. It’s not clear if that’s actually something he’s thinking about or something he said.”
That’s quite a distinction. Would it be better if it was “something he’s thinking about” rather than “something he said”? Or vice versa?
Occasionally reasonable Republican consultant Kristin Solis Anderson dismissed the notion. “What does Donald Trump do? Big real estate transactions. Branding—the Gulf of America. I mean, this is this is just Donald Trump taking the same playbook he’s been running for decades and now trying to apply it to the US government yet again.
She continued: “If we actually invade, if we actually invade Greenland. Have me back on the show. Show me this clip of me saying ‘We’re not going to invade Greenland!’ You can tell me I’m done. And you can tell me I’m foolish. We’re not going to invade Greenland.”
Personally, I don’t think he’ll use military force to annex Greenland, but it’s starting again: Major media figures insisting Trump’s not going to do what he claims, letting him off from being a madman who’s capable of almost anything. (I don’t know why I added “almost.”) Some analyses of the 2024 election posit that Americans just didn’t believe he is that crazy, or dangerous, because of this media “sanewashing.” Many such voters chose Trump, or decided to stay home on Election Day.
On some level, I get it: Trump’s boasts and threats are so continuous and over the top it’s tempting to sort through them and declare some to be off the table. I don’t know how anyone could do that right now. With tech czars and media moguls kowtowing to the president-elect, every day we lose more so-called “guardrails” against his genuine malfeasance. Why the rush to assure people he doesn’t mean what he says?
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Katrina vanden Huevel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation
