Sugarcoating
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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Spin
English is not my native language, but I think the word you're after is "bullshit".
Whitewashing?
Spin and propaganda have already been said, and those are good. Rhetoric, from your title, is also good for this.
Framing, reframing, recontextualizing
Propaganda?
"Sanewashing" has been getting thrown around a lot lately.
But if it's more malicious actions you might just mean "gaslighting"?
I've not heard of 'sanewashing' before. That's an interesting one. It may be 'gaslighting', but I'm not sure. A fictional example of what I'm talking about would be the guy who dates a woman to get closer to her sister. Or Homer Simpson buying a bowling ball for Marge Simpson's birthday and saying 'Well, if you don't want it, I know someone who could really, really use it....' :D
I'd say those are both shady behaviors belying ulterior motives.
Both of those terms are accurate to what I'm describing. It's like racist neighbors finding everything wrong with the upkeep of your house or how much noise your kids are making just to cover up the fact that they don't want to live next to someone of color.
Manipulation
I'd say that second one is nearing a sunk cost fallacy making it akin to cognitive dissonance. That's the term usually described in addiction and certain splurge purchases, meaning that your brain will try to reason around anything against a certain idea.
Example: I shouldn't have another drink because I still need to drive and I have got a pretty busy day tomorrow. Then again, I could always take the bus home and call in sick tomorrow. I deserve another drink because I worked hard today.
Justifying. Basically you already have a behaviour in mind, but you need an excuse to execute on that behaviour.
It can also be retroactive. You can create an excuse for your behaviour after you've already done something -- retroactive justification.
This would not be gaslighting. Gaslighting would be, for example, saying the negative thing didn't happen at all, not trying to cover it up with positive spin.
Euphemism?
Maybe your looking for "toxic-positivity"?
It's the type of mindset where everything must be positive, even if that means discounting or ignoring negative feelings, bad behavior, and bad situations.
This is a recognized psychological phenomena and can range from normal "keep your chin up" type stuff to full blown "FUD will not be tolerated" cult type stuff
No, really the best example I can give is the one I've already made about the racist neighbor. If there isn't a term for this sort of behavior, there needs to be one.
Hypocrisy
You could be talking about passive framing.
Johnson was struck by a round fired from the gun of Deputy Jackson, leading to a loss of blood which turned out to be fatal.
vs.
Deputy Jackson shot and killed Johnson.
It's not really positive rhetoric, though, just framing the event so passively that the shooter feels completely disconnected from the death of the victim.