This Axios tweet and accompanying beat sweetener by former NBC News Pentagon remora and now Axios fluffer Hans Nichols has received some attention as another example of the "savvy" inside- the- Beltway- bubble "take" that's killing journalism and, by extension, democracy:
Kyrsten Sinema’s allies have some free advice for anyone trying to bully the wine-drinking triathlete into supporting Biden's $3.5 trillion budget bill: She doesn’t play by Washington’s rules — and she's prepared to walk away. https://t.co/7LLrQUhcIy
— Axios (@axios) October 1, 2021
Scott Lemieux summarizes the Axios poop sheet:
Yes, see the problem is that Social Justice Warrior Joe Biden decided that the BBBA should include mandatory daily diversity training and a copy of White Fragility to be sent to every American. If it had included something that addressed the material interests of ordinary people — say, funding for childcare and free community college — things would be different!
Of course, the free ride when you’ve already paid is that Axios is treating one of the most banal figures in American politics — a obstructionist conservative Democrat beholden to wealthy special interests — as something new under the sun because she’s bisexual and dresses unconventionally for a member of Congress.
He goes on to "crack the code" that explains why so many in this bubble seem to root for the villains and not for the common interest: they're corporatist shills looking out for their corporate interests! As the poop sheet reports, she's "reluctant to support any increase in the corporate tax rate," she's "raised red flags about increasing the rate on corporations' international profits," and "she's opposed to Biden's headline 39.6% rate" on capital gains. Sounds like policies Axios, funded by venture capitalists and sustained by Koch Industries and Exxon ad dollars, can get behind!
BONUS:
I genuinely do not understand framing the fate of legislation that will affect millions of people as the subplot of a story about an individual senator’s self-actualization. https://t.co/AzD45JzZhu
— Adam Serwer 🍝 (@AdamSerwer) October 1, 2021
See Lemieux above for explanation.
