Axios co-founder Mike Allen revealed his and his outlet’s anti-economic nationalist and pro-corporatist biases on Thursday when his morning newsletter blistered President Donald Trump and Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon for their “7 months of destruction” while sparing Jared Kushner.
Allen, one of the greatest and most elegantly efficient purveyors of Beltway conventional wisdom, hammered Trump for losing “big business.” Memo to Allen: Americans and Trump’s voters like small businesses and entrepreneurs and not “big business” associated with Wall Street, corporatist Bush Republicans, and crony capitalism.
He alarmingly writes that Trump has, in just seven months, alienated Mitch McConnell (voters hate Congress), Democrats (the rudderless party is having a tough time winning elections at all levels), the media (their approval ratings are at near-record lows—so why should virtue-signaling Republicans take their cues from an institution everyday Americans do not trust?), CEOs, world leaders (doesn’t hurt Trump to be disliked by the “Party of Davos”), Europe, [radical] Muslims, [“salad-bowl”] Hispanics, [self-appointed leaders of] black Americans, military leaders and intelligence officials [many of whom support former President Barack Obama or the nation-building foreign policy of Allen’s favored neoconservatives in the GOP establishment], his own staff [of globalists, Democrats, and establishment Republicans].
It turns out Trump may be alienating mostly all of the right types of groups and people.
Allen also predictably piles on Bannon, slamming his supposed “power grabs, back-biting, and grandiose America-First fantasizing,” but he does not describe Kushner, who has tried to oust Bannon numerous times (Bannon has the shiv marks to prove it), as a power-grabber. He does not describe Kushner, who has a personal taxpayer-funded public relations operative in the White House putting Kushner’s interests and image above Trump’s, as a back-biter. He does not describe Kushner, who apparently thinks he can bring peace to the Middle East and actually thought he was so clever at politics that Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey would be a huge political win for the administration, as “grandiose.”
Allen’s measly criticism of Jared? He hasn’t been able to get Trump to betray his base and goes on vacations to fancy places like Sun Valley and Whistler when Trump needs all hands on deck because Jared apparently can’t take the political heat. Talk about a gentle wrist-tap—or a pat on the head.
For some reason, Allen does not mention that Jared convinced Trump to fire Comey, foolishly and naively thinking Democrats would cheer Kushner like neoconservatives thought Iraqis would greet American soldiers with “sweets” and “flowers.” One can argue that Trump would not be in the mess that he is in now had he not taken Jared’s oh-so-genius advice.
Allen does not mention that Jared had to update his financial disclosure forms on numerous occasions. Allen does not point out that Jared did not initially disclose his extensive foreign contacts (100+) and gave one of the most absurd excuses for not doing so—his assistant accidentally pushed the “send” button before the supposedly technological genius could complete his security clearance form online. Allen does note that Jared may have pushed Trump to support Saudi Arabia against Qatar because he could not get a financing deal from Qatari billionaires that he may have needed to bail out his 666 Fifth Avenue property that he grossly overpaid for at the height of the real estate boom. Allen does not mention that Jared’s family may have been trying to profit off of Trump’s name and presidency by telling wealthy Chinese investors that they could get EB-5 visas if they poured money into their indebted properties.
One would think Jared was a Democrat given the way Allen omits all the negative information about him the way the media does for Democrats they carry water for on a regular basis. And actually you wouldn’t be wrong — Jared is, in fact, a lifelong Democrat.
The heavily consultant-tested “The Axios Way” (who is Axios’ Al Campanis?) memo written with a mix and match of today’s “in” buzzwords talks about Axios’ “smart brevity.”
Perhaps a better slogan for Axios’ coverage of pro-nationalist figures, ideas, and policies may be “Get Spun Fast,” “Stealth Flackery,” or “Elegantly Biased” in favor of the “smart sets,” the 3.8% of “No Labels/St. Albans” voters who infest the D.C./NYC cocktail circuits, and the conventional views favored by the media and political elites.
Allen’s hyped “interview” with Michael Bloomberg, after all, could as just have been a native advertisement because three of Bloomberg’s answers to Allen’s six cantaloupe-sized softball questions promoted various Bloomberg products.
It seems like Allen has never met an “influencer” or a “thinker” or a “celebrity” or a “very important person in the establishment” he did not fawn over and hype, so perhaps that is why he may be biased in favor of Jared and his team of professional whisperers and siren-song singers.
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