I had not been very familiar with Fuentes before the Trump meeting, though I had a vague sense that he was a racist, anti-semitic reactionary.

I read the NY Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian every day, not cover to cover but with pretty careful attention. Still, it took me two or three days to realize just who Fuentes is.

The news articles I read really did normalize him, to use your vocabulary, by reporting on him in carefully neutral terms. I'm sure I could have learned the reality faster by digging, but I wish mainstream journalists would do the digging for me, like I've counted on them to do all my life in other matters.