We’ve noted for a while that DC, and particularly the GOP’s, interest in “antitrust reform” is somewhat hollow. For one, while the United States is rife with heavily monopolized business sectors (insurance, health care, telecom, banking, airlines), this recent batch of “reform” only specifically targets large technology companies. It’s as if these other sectors (most notably telecom) simply… don’t exist.
Even then, the bills we’ve seen so far are often clumsily written, and include weird limitations on which companies should fall under scrutiny. For example, several of the heavily hyped bills being promoted over the last year set an arbitrary market cap of $600 billion. Amusingly when Facebook scared investors away with its lame Meta pivot, it fell below that scrutiny threshold.
The GOP side of “antitrust reform” has been particularly hollow. Even Ken Buck, who has been the cheerleader for narrow antitrust reform on the GOP side, generally likes to ignore that telecom monopolies like AT&T and Comcast exist. Buck has literally supported every consolidation and deregulatory pipe dream of AT&T and Comcast for decades. You’re apparently supposed to ignore that.
And like much of the GOP, Buck’s head has been filled with pudding thanks to divisive culture war bullshit being used to agitate low information voters. For example, over the weekend in a since deleted Twitter thread (screenshotted text below), Buck threatened to utilize the government’s antitrust enforcement power to “smash woke capital” — specifically Apple — to punish the company for its opposition to anti-LGBTQ bills in Florida and elsewhere:
If you can’t read the screenshot, it says:
THREAD: Antitrust is the best way to smash woke capital and protect our kids.
Companies that grow to colossal size, monopoly size, use their power to change politics to make more profit.
This power is a function of their wealth and control over the economy.
At some point, they start to control the information flow in our democracy.
We end up being governed by the CEOs of monopolies and their hard-left employee base.
Simple solution: restore competition by ending the monopoly.
Again, while Buck is routinely held up as a Republican who “gets” the need for antitrust reform, he doesn’t, really. Buck, (like most of the GOP) will be first in line to oppose antitrust reform should it be applied to genuinely monopolized sectors like telecom. Yet here he’s suggesting that U.S. antitrust enforcement should be leveraged against Apple simply because it wants to engage in some light lobbying opposition to bills that would harm Apple LGBTQ employees and customers.
He’s since deleted the tweet, suggested he understood the stupidity of it, or at least understood that threatening to punish a company for its lobbying activity would violate the First Amendment. But the dumb tirade was also notable given that Rep. David Cicilline, one of Buck’s key allies in the “bipartisan antitrust reform” effort, is openly gay:
Rep. Ken Buck says Apple lobbying against anti-LGBTQ state bills is reason to pass antitrust legislation & "smash woke capital"
His top ally in that antitrust push, Rep. David Cicilline, was the first openly gay mayor of a state capital & co-chairs the LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus https://t.co/tzIL57hSYA
— Cristiano Lima (@viaCristiano) April 3, 2022
For years, experts pointed out that U.S. antitrust reform had grown toothless and frail, our competition laws need updating in the Amazon era, and “are consumers happy?” (the traditional consumer welfare standard) doesn’t actually measure all aspects of potential harm in complex markets. Like so many issues, this shouldn’t be a bipartisan fight for better policy and law. Yet it’s often framed as a partisan issue to sow division.
What we should have gotten was a serious examination of all industries and proposals that fairly targeted very clear monopolization, market failure, and anti-competitive behavior across the board. Instead we got a bunch of weird, hollow promises and performances. Specifically by the GOP, whose 40 year track record of coddling monopolies at nearly every turn (again, just look at telecom) is undeniable.
Beyond that, threatening to use the government’s antitrust authority to attack a company for taking an ethical position on ignorant and backward policies in states teetering toward authoritarianism is ignorant policy malpractice itself.
For the GOP, extremism, victimization porn, and culture war performances have utterly displaced serious policymaking. Yet somehow much of the mainstream press and policy punditry haven’t gotten the memo, and continue to help the GOP pretend their interest in “antitrust reform” is genuine. It’s not. It never was.
As we’ve noted previously, much of the GOP’s assault on “big tech censorship” (including the fracas over Section 230) is an attempt to force tech companies to carry race-baiting propaganda, a cornerstone of modern GOP power in the face of unfavorable demographics and a sagging electorate.
And while surely there are a few GOP representatives (like Buck) who care a tiny bit about monopoly power, the Trump GOP’s clear goal at the moment isn’t meaningful policy, healthier markets, or consumer protection, it’s in further filling the heads of targeted voters with pebbles and hate. Which, if you hadn’t been paying attention (see: Fox News) is working extremely well.
