BY: Damain Teer for The Simpleton Star
The ongoing, multi-city funeral spectacle for Iran’s late Supreme Leader has exposed a grotesque reality in Western journalism. Major corporate outlets have effectively become the English-language wing of the Islamic Republic’s propaganda machine. For decades, the Iranian state has relied on the visual theater of “millions in the streets” to project absolute legitimacy and hide a hollow, fragile core. What is truly sickening is that the Western press is eagerly swallowing this regime theater hook, line, and sinker. They aren’t doing it out of a sudden love for radical theocracy; they are doing it because their pathological hatred for Donald Trump outweighs any shred of journalistic integrity, moral consistency, or loyalty to the United States.
Consider the rank hypocrisy on display. The very same media institutions that routinely lecture the American public about progressive values, women’s liberation, gay rights, and trans visibility are running glowing, dramatic headlines featuring ocean-sized crowds mourning a man who systematically crushed those exact groups. Under the late Ayatollah’s iron fist, women were beaten to death in the streets for letting a strand of hair escape a hijab, and minorities were brutally executed. Yet, when the cameras roll, the anchor desks don’t lead with the regime’s systemic slaughter of its own people or the bused-in, state-coerced reality of these mass rallies. Instead, they lean heavily into romanticized narratives of national unity, regime resilience, and popular anti-US fury.
Why? Because the alternative requires acknowledging a reality that breaks their narrative: that the Trump administration’s aggressive stance against Iran severely crippled a brutal dictatorship. To admit that the Iranian public is deeply fractured—that thousands secretly celebrated the tyrant’s demise while state security forces shot at protestors—would mean admitting Trump’s policies actually exposed the regime’s weaknesses. To avoid giving Trump an ounce of credit, these newsrooms would rather validate the inflated turnout numbers of a terrorist state. The anti-Trump reflex has completely broken their moral compass. They have chosen to validate an extremist regime that chants “Death to America” just to score a cheap, domestic political point against the former president, burying the true voice of the oppressed Iranian majority in the process.
The Biblical Reflection
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” — Isaiah 5:20
Why this verse fits: This verse cuts straight to the heart of moral inversion. It perfectly captures the frustration of watching institutions tasked with telling the truth completely flip reality on its head. When a media apparatus elevates a brutal, human-rights-abusing dictator into a sympathetic figure solely to weaponize his funeral against a domestic political rival, they are actively calling evil good and darkness light. It highlights the dangerous spiritual and cultural decay that happens when hatred for a single political figure becomes so consuming that truth itself is sacrificed.
A Prayer for Discernment and Truth
Heavenly Father, we come to You in a time of deep confusion and rampant deception, where truth is routinely bartered for political power and moral clarity has been cast aside. We ask that You pull back the veil of propaganda and expose the lies being fed to the public. Give us the wisdom and discernment to see through the theater, the inflated numbers, and the biased headlines. Comfort the millions of ordinary people in Iran who have suffered under decades of tyranny and whose cries for freedom are being ignored by a compromised press. Guard our own hearts against bitterness, and let Your absolute truth prevail over the political games of this world. Amen.
