The inside scoops at Axios can do two things at once and do them well: Annoy the absolute shit out of you with the insufferable “Behind the Curtain” insidery aesthetic and increasingly childish “Why it matters” bullet points while ALSO managing to provide a rarified window into the pants pissing when things are starting to go bad for their Republican donor class audience demo’s political outlook.

Sometimes they even express it visually…

Lol.

Much of the text of this Thursday article is just outlining some bad recent polling for the Trump Regime. There’s only one [direct] anonymous quote: “People are depressed,” attributed to a “Trump loyalist at the barricades,” summarizing the feeling inside the top echelons. Terse and maybe a tad dramatic but God willing that loser mentality continues to sink in inexorably.

Further down after the dreadful polling outline they printed a text from Steve Bannon: “Action, Action, Action… Let’s run the table with a simple plan, aggressively executed The President may have to bang some heads. His entire plan has an objective of GROWTH, JOBS, HIGHER WAGES, now execute,” as though Trump needs to just push a few buttons and all of those things will materialize.

However that was right after the best part: “Trump officials tell us they feel confident the economy will grow and prices will ease starting in Q1 of next year. Trump will then declare victory on rescuing, then juicing the economy – and warn a Democratic Congress would pull America back to the Biden economy days. The Trump machine would then use redistricting wins (producing more winnable seats) + Trump’s political money ($1 billion+) to protect the GOP’s thin House majority.”

Lol again.

Now as much as Axios deserves the shit National Zero heaps on them for their great many sins over the years, it’s important to remember that they’re an upmarket brand. They’re not Fox News, who can say “UR THANXGIVING TURKEY IS 25 BUX LESS THEN IT WUZ WHEN JOETARD BIDENMENTIA WUZ TEH FAKE AUTOPEN PRESIDENT SO FUK U IF U THINK TRUMP IZN’T TEH GOAT U QUEERS.”

Axios has certain limits and they have to sort of respect their readers’ intelligence.

Most of the time.

Anyway, they then write next to a grating “Reality Check” tag that “Yes, Trump is right that Trump and Republicans do well when he’s on the ballot. But he never will be again. And if you look at other recent elections without Trump running, you see why Republicans are panicky. More often than not, they lose,” which actually isn’t that reality check-y, at least specific to the confidence that Trump’s minions were projecting about Q1 2026, much less even question what the hell they based it on.

Still it’s this commitment to keeping it mostly real with their Youngkin-stan audience that ultimately allows for a certain kind of clarity that you can’t always discern elsewhere. If an outlet like Axios – by and for that “We’re all MAGA when it means tax cuts and deregulation” set – says the top layers of the GOP establishment are freaking the fuck out then yeah, they’re freaking the fuck out.