Assume The Worst

No More Benefit Of The Doubt For Trump And The Right Wingers

One of the most helpful things that the media has been doing for trump and the GOP for ages is constantly giving them the benefit of the doubt. He does something insane or offensive or obviously illegal and the media hems and haws and makes excuses and claims “we don’t really know if he meant it that way!” But the fact is everyone fucking knows he meant it that way. Even the media knows, they just refuse to report the truth for some bullshit reasons.

The latest major example of this is of course Elon Musk making multiple, obvious, and easily recognizable Nazi salutes at an inauguration event. It was so incredibly obvious that one might wonder if he did it the way he did it to make it more difficult for the media to pretend it was not a Nazi salute. But worry not, of course the media has been able to find a way to pretend it was not an obvious Nazi salute. After all, nobody works harder for trump and his buddies than the people in the media.

Giving the benefit of the doubt is the key element of normalizing and sane-washing trump and the GOP and his shithead billionaire buddies. The media has been doing it for years, since trump came down the escalator talking about Mexicans being rapists, and even before that when they pretended his nonsense birther slurs against Obama were legitimate. It has gotten extensively worse in the 8 years since he was elected, and has accelerated even more since the campaign as trump became a convicted felon, was legally confirmed as a rapist, and has become more deranged and senile. It has honestly been pretty impressive how hard the media has worked to pretend he is just an everyday moderate Republican. The most disastrous part is it worked and they were able to help him win.

Now of course it would be great if they could stop giving him the benefit of the doubt, but the real answer is to go beyond that. People need to assume the worst when trump or one of his henchmen do something. They deserve no benefit of the doubt but even more importantly we all need to assume the worst about them and the situation. Especially considering that assuming the worst is likely way closer to the reality of the situation. In fact, if the worst assumptions about trump in a given situation is not accurate it probably just means that it is actually worse than anyone imagined the worst could be.

So going forward, the default on any news out of the trump administration is assume the worst and react and treat trump and his people accordingly. If trump or one of his minions wants to deny it, the burden can be on them to try to prove the assumption wrong.

The nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hesgeth? Until he proves otherwise we can safely assume he is a drunk and a rapist and an incompetent white supremacist. 

DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard? Obviously a Putin spy who is going to give our secrets to Russia.

Project 2025? They are giving administration jobs to dozens of scumbags who wrote it so of course they are going to implement it, despite trump’s lies about it during the campaign.

Elon Musk? Endorsed neo-Nazi party in Germany, throwing Nazi salutes during inauguration ceremonies, the guy is a fucking wannabe Nazi.

And of course trump… He already is a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist and obvious Putin ass-kisser so assuming the worst should be the easiest thing in the world to do. 

We need to assume the worst and if anyone in the media fails to assume the worst, we should assume the worst about them as well until they prove that they are working for the truth and not just working to run cleanup for Republicans.