The Contrarian Files: Stories That Challenge the Consensus
Trump-Zelensky, Bezos’ media shake-up, and the gaps in public perception
Conventional wisdom has taken a beating lately. Trump’s 2016 win? Maybe a fluke. But 2024? That was a clear statement. Despite the January 6 insurrection/riot and endless predictions of his political demise, Trump didn’t just win the Electoral College—he also beat Kamala Harris in the popular vote. That wasn’t supposed to happen. And yet, it did.
Many Americans clearly believe the status quo is broken. But you wouldn’t always know it from mainstream media coverage. One goal of TL;dr is to surface contrarian takes—perspectives that challenge dominant narratives. Many of these come from platforms my colleagues might not be reading, like Substack (still niche in many circles) or The Wall Street Journal (a lot pricier than The New York Times).
This week:
✅ Two contrarian reads—one on Trump’s White House clash with Zelensky, another on Jeff Bezos’ editorial shake-up at The Washington Post.
✅ Texas leaders’ silence on a measles outbreak, plus an expert’s no-nonsense take on the crisis.
✅ A bright spot: Sanger, Texas, City Manager John Noblitt is recognized as an Exemplary Public Servant for leadership on infrastructure, utilities, and economic development.
Let’s get into it.
Media Meltdown vs. Voter Reality: The Trump-Zelensky Divide
The elite media framed Trump’s exchange with Zelensky as an embarrassment, but polling suggests the public saw it differently.
Writing in The Free Press, Batya Ungar-Sargon points out that while pundits clutched their pearls, a majority of voters actually found Zelensky’s comments more offensive than Trump’s response. She writes:
To hear the media tell it, President Trump embarrassed himself and the country. Pundits, journalists, columnists, and other foreign policy experts have joined European leaders in castigating Trump like the townsfolk chasing Cersei Lannister down the road screaming “Shame! Shame!” The elite classes are engaged in a full-scale meltdown, accusing our president of gaslighting, belittling, humiliating, berating, and bullying a small, defenseless ally.
But, as has become the dominant trend over the past decade, ordinary American taxpayers saw things differently. David Burrell of Wick Insights polled 1,000 registered voters after showing them an 11-minute video of the conflict between the presidents. Even though Republicans and Democrats were represented in the poll at the same percentage as in the voting public, only one-third of those voters strongly disapproved of how Trump behaved. Meanwhile, nearly half felt that Trump and Vance had a stronger argument than Zelensky. As for Zelensky’s comment that really set off Trump—that the U.S. would “feel it in the future” if it failed to ensure security guarantees to Ukraine—fully 62 percent of respondents said they found Zelensky’s comments “offensive.” Furthermore, 69 percent of those polled believe the United States has the most negotiating leverage to end the conflict.
This poll joins others that suggest cratering support among the American people for the war in Ukraine—and for its president. As CNN found recently, in February 2022, 72 percent said they had confidence that Zelensky will “do the right thing when it comes to world affairs”; now, in February 2025, that number has plummeted to 48 percent. Meanwhile, 78 percent of Americans want a Russia/Ukraine-negotiated peace deal, with just 16 percent opposing it.
Media hot takes fade, but quality polling tells a different story. Ignore it at your peril.
Bezos vs. The Media Class
Jeff Bezos—Amazon founder, the world’s second-richest man, and owner of The Washington Post—announced on Feb. 26 a major shift in the paper’s op-ed pages:
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.
There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.
Mainstream media figures, predictably, lost their minds. To them, Bezos wasn’t just making an editorial choice—he was committing heresy. But as Pirate Wires editor Mike Solana argues, the reaction wasn’t about journalism. It was about control.
If you’re not familiar with Solana, The Atlantic profiled him last year as “The Most Opinionated Man in America.” He sees Bezos’ move as both inevitable and long overdue.
(Bezos) decision mostly just strikes me as inevitable, and not only because Bezos has previously signaled his displeasure with the overall communist barista disposition of his paper, a once-storied institution disgraced by several years of openly partisan propaganda … There’s also been something of a media reckoning since Trump’s re-election, in which even overtly left-wing organizations are reexamining their bias. In part, they’ve done so with integrity. There are many journalists who really do want to understand what’s going on, and who really are aware they got the last few years wrong—in everything from their surreal pro-crime positioning to predicting the last election ...
But, Solana argues, at the heart of the backlash is something deeper: an industry-wide sense of entitlement.
These people are not only entitled to share their personal opinions from the largest and most influential media platforms in America, their act of sharing is itself an essential public service. I can’t stress enough how important this is, because you will never understand the media until you comprehend this point: these people not only believe they are right, they believe you should be forced to listen to them speak because they are right. They are professional opinion havers.
All the more reason for local governments to set up communications shops that look and act like newsrooms.
Measles Outbreak: Silence from Texas Leaders
🚨 Texas is facing its worst measles outbreak in decades—146 cases in a month, one child dead, and 20 hospitalized, reports the Texas Tribune. While state and local health officials are ramping up vaccine efforts, Texas elected leaders remain silent. No public statements, no press conferences, no calls for vaccination. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did offer some remarks to the media. And in it, he shared three inaccuracies1.
That’s not contrary. That’s poor governance.
The political fallout from COVID lingers. Officials interviewed by the Tribune said stronger vaccine hesitancy, decreased trust in science, and political reluctance to push public health measures are shaping the response.
“Everybody is so sensitive to the vaccine topic due to COVID,” Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett said. “We need to be very careful about how we address this … Our job is to provide the resources, not to tell people what they need to do.”
The appetite for aggressive public health intervention? Long gone.
“Texas is such an independent state. People don’t want to be told what to do, forgetting that what they do can affect others. And measles is an example of that,” said Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at UTHealth Houston.
💡 Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) weighs in: “A little child is dead. From measles. In the United States. In 2025. They were unvaccinated and otherwise healthy, making it the first casualty of the West Texas measles outbreak—and the first measles death in the U.S. in a decade. One death from a preventable disease is one too many.”
Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, aka Your Local Epidemiologist, breaks down five key takeaways from the outbreak and answers reader questions—including one asking if they should cancel a trip to West Texas. Her blunt response: “If your flight is flexible, I would wait to see how this unfolds. If the trip were today, I wouldn’t go.”
I’m a paid subscriber to YLE because Dr. Jetelina delivers clear, no-nonsense public health insights. For those of us who had to quickly become conversant on COVID five years ago, she remains an invaluable resource for local government communicators. The YLE series on declining trust in vaccines, which took a no-holds-barred look at the problems with the COVID vaccine rollout, is a sterling example of governing done right.
Onward and Upward
🎖️ Congratulations to John Noblitt, City Manager of Sanger, Texas, recently named one of American City & County’s 2024 Exemplary Public Servants. Noblitt had a heckuva year: He secured a 16-year fixed-rate electricity agreement, saving the city millions and ensuring reliable power; acquired land for a regional wastewater treatment plant, expanded water storage, and planned new parks and trails; delivered on a long-standing community request by bringing a Tom Thumb grocery store to a major 2,000-home development; and last but not least, he implemented a salary study that led to significant pay raises, better pension matches, and cost-of-living adjustments for retirees. Well done, sir!
Here are RFK Jr.’s three inaccuracies from his Feb. 26 remarks, per YLE:
He incorrectly said there’s “nothing unusual; we have measles outbreaks every year.” First, there’s nothing normal about a child dying from measles. Also, this year’s tally has already surpassed 8 out of the past 15 years’ annual measles counts. We are only 1.5 months into 2025. Finally, we have only had 4 outbreaks with more than 100 cases in the past 10 years. West Texas is now on the list.
Those hospitalized are due to troubled breathing, not quarantining like he incorrectly said. None of the hospitalized cases are vaccinated.
There has been one death so far. He incorrectly said there have been two deaths. I don’t know how you get that wrong.
NOTE: RFK Jr. did write an op-ed published March 2 where he stated, “Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons.” He also wrote he has been in touch with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to offer any federal support the state needs, and that he has “spoken to the bereaved parents of the deceased child to offer consolation.”