There is an old Southern custom that allows a speaker to absolve themselves of wrongdoing when they criticize another by adding the phrase, “bless his heart” at the end. Gracious words at the end of a caustic attack meant to disguise the truth.
That phrase, as with the media’s new obsession with the word “despite”, doesn’t reveal the truth of the attack any more than it blesses anyone or their vital organs. One can’t bless that which one disdains.
The word “despite” is to the Legacy Media as is the Southern saying as a manner of disguising an attack on the current administration’s policies and their effects.
For example.
Axios promoted an article on their X feed with the headline, “Crime plunges in major cities despite Trump’s crackdown rhetoric.”
A “plunge” in crime occurred precisely because of Trump’s crackdown rhetoric and an actual crackdown on crime. The headline highlights a spectacular improvement that benefits every American while trying to ensure no one attributes that success to the president.
The Spokesman-Review of Washington State proclaimed, “Trump economy shows surprising resilience despite tariff impacts”.
The economy is humming. Greater than 4% GDP growth in 2025 QTR 3, inflation down, unemployment at 4.3%, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta GDPNow forecast for QTR 4 2025 sits at a sizzling 5.4% and the stock market remains at or near record highs.
All of this didn’t happen “despite” Trump economic policies, but because of them. The tariff debate may continue, but it continues because the opposition prefers hypothesis to evidence. Ronald Reagan once said, “Economists are people who wonder if what works in reality can also work in theory.”
Up north the Canucks of the Windsor Star report, “Despite ‘toxic’ Trump threats, Windsor message to Americans: ‘Come on over!”
Canadians are a friendly people and “despite” the foolishness and wokeness of their government they love American money. As with economists, journalists often prefer perception to reality be they Canadian, American, or the self-employed Don Lemon.
The esteemed Forbes magazine is also in on the act, “Trump Vows ‘Long Term Prison Sentences’ For Election ‘Cheating’—Despite No Evidence Of Major Fraud”.
This headline underscores how manipulative the Dead Media has become. Using the word “Major” implies minor fraud, whatever that means, is acceptable. Scores of Leftist public scribes adhere to the theorem as it relates to the 2020 presidential election, the fraud that occurred was “too little to change the outcome.” When a cadaver gets 81 million votes something is rotten in the nation’s ballot boxes and in the heads of journalists who have no appetite to investigate.
Josh Boak of the AP had this to say after Mamdani’s victory in NYC, “(Trump) Reprising his political greatest hits despite Tuesday’s results.”
Trump’s “greatest hits” need to be repeated. Mamdani and NYC are either circling the drain or on the precipice of entering the ninth circle of Hell. Mamdani’s victory doesn’t prove Trump wrong, instead it reveals the NYC electorate as equal parts cowardly and communist. Gotham will need a defender, and my money is on Trumpman.
The Citizen Watch Report posted the following headline, “DOJ review finds zero evidence tying Trump to Epstein crimes, no victim claims, deleted files match archives despite online frenzy”.
Since when does reality bend to “online frenzy”?
Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological hoax of the 20th century in which bone fragments were falsely presented as the remains of an early human ancestor. Bits of bone presented as an entirely new creature.
Epstein isn’t a hoax, but with Piltdown Man he shares a shadowy conception.
Emails, documents, flight logs, and texts are more incriminating in remnants than when complete within their milieu. A puzzle whose individual pieces are somehow greater than the whole. The evidential remains of a perverse life lack useful context, whether by redaction or circumstance, obstructing the finished product.
Because the scraps are of greater value as political weapons than the whole, why finish the task?
This country isn’t theoretical. It exists and its people suffer and succeed in reality. When the press and the Left pretend things are bad when they are not, or under Biden things are good when they are bad, they earn the distrust of the populace.
When it comes to Trump all the good happens “despite” him, not because of him.
Because of spite the media will continue their attacks, “despite” the truth.
As for Democrats, Leftists and Progressives they’re working with the combined intelligence of a whoop of chimpanzees, bless their hearts.
Stephen Piccirillo © 2025
