My Reply: Don't Blame Voters for Bad Choices or Journalists for Bad Leaders
Plus a note on White House briefings from ex-Clinton Press Secretary Mike McCurry.
Welcome to the fourth edition of My Reply, where I curate your questions and publish my replies.
Some of these exchanges come from the comments section of Convulsions columns. Others come from the daily “Morning Read-In,” a pre-dawn ritual where I curate the most compelling stories on politics, culture, communications, and life — with micro-essays of insight and live chats.
Your parts are in italics. Mine are not.
Welcome back, Ron!
Pamela Leavey just caught up with “As I was saying …,” the January 2 column that launched this Substack. Pamela wrote: “Ron, it is great to see you back at it! I stay out of the fray these days, but it’s great to be able to read your work again.”
REPLY: Bless you, Pamela. It’s nice to be remembered. I also intend to avoid the fray —or at least not be consumed by it.
is allowing me to build a small, tightly knit community of people who like to have their biases checked through decent writing and personal decency. That’s enough for me.Mike McCurry in the house!
Former White House Press Secretary
read “My Reply: 5 Ways to Fight Trumpism” and offered an alternative to my call for a boycott on White House briefings in response to President Trump banning The Associated Press from certain White House coverage and seizing control of the so-called White House pool.“My suggestion would be that news organizations suspend live coverage of the ‘briefing,’” McCurry wrote in
Notes. “I should have established that rule when I opened the briefing for broadcast media. It’s a briefing, not a TV show. Reporters should take in the information provided by the White House and test it with other reliable sources and then produce factual and nuanced accounts.”REPLY: Love that idea, Mike. We’ve talked before about how your well-meaning decision to broadcast the briefings live during the Clinton sex scandal had the unintended consequences of creating a TV show for preening correspondents and politicos.
Don’t blame voters
read in Friday’s MRI about a Michigan woman named Ryleigh Cooper who reluctantly voted for Trump and now regrets it. He wrote, “So a known and documented liar said something you wanted to believe and you voted for him. He lied, you’re disappointed. He acted like he always does and somehow you’re disappointed.”
REPLY: The point I think you’re missing, Mike, is that every voter in America is guilty of believing politicians. Or hoping that one politician is more likely than another to lie a little less.
Trump made a promise that hit Ryleigh Cooper in the heart: He said he’d help her have a baby. More to the point, he said he’d make IVF treatments free. He hasn’t kept that promise and she’s heartbroken. I won’t blame her.
If Biden promised to make IVF treatments free or even cheaper, I missed it. Even if he did, voters had every reason not to believe him. After all, he and his team insisted he had his full mental capabilities and was up to the job of defeating Trump. Anybody who still believes that lie is no less of a lemming than MAGA faithful.
Gaslighting is a partisan tactic, my friend.
Don’t blame journalists
read about Lester Holt leaving NBC’s anchor chair and wrote, “He’s not a capitulator. But MSNBC along with all other network news shows are capitulators capitulating, the action of surrendering or ceasing to resist an opponent or demand.”
REPLY: I’m afraid it’s too easy to conflate objective, accountability journalism with capitulation. You don’t have to demonize Trump to be a solid journalist. You don’t need to demonize Democrats to be a solid journalist. NBC tries to get it right, which means they are never going to make partisans happy.
It breaks my heart to see liberals join MAGA in demonizing journalists for doing their jobs.
An MRI on the body politic
@jeannejax wrote in Saturday’s Morning Read-In chat: “MRI is proving to be my first morning read and I am loving it. Since I have chosen to curate my daily news diet I find the unplugged nature of the journalists and experts I follow on refreshing.”
REPLY: Thank you Jeanne for your support and readership. You paid subscribers are the rocket fuel for Convulsions.
I bask in the first couple hours of my day when I sit in the dark with a cup of coffee and my cell phone, scanning multiple websites (I subscribe so you don’t need to!) for stories that interest me. After years of posting short comments and links on X during my morning read-ins, I now turn to the MRI on
and stretch my dot-connecting into micro-essays that give you not just the gist of the original stories but also my takes on them.I hope these columns, the MRI, and other benefits are worth $5 a month. That’s about 16 cents a day.
Big Announcement
This is my 51st column on Convulsions since the Substack launched January 2. Most of them are posted outside the paywall.
That’s a lot of free content.
But the written word has value and so does my time. So I’m asking you to please consider leveling up — from free to paid or from paid to Concierge.
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The MRI include enough excerpts, context, and insights to get you plugged in for the day. Often times, you’ll see me plant a seed of a column idea in the MRI and then flesh it out into a newsletter column.
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I too read you first, right after my meditation.
Ron...you have become the first thing I read in the morning (after doing the Spelling Bee). Terrific work!