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English is not my native language, but I think the word you're after is "bullshit".
Spin
Sugarcoating
Whitewashing?
Spin and propaganda have already been said, and those are good. Rhetoric, from your title, is also good for this.
Framing, reframing, recontextualizing
Hypocrisy
Euphemism?
Propaganda?
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.
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.
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
28 points (100.0% liked)
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