OPINION
Among the principles conservatives hold most dear are the promotion of free markets, the protection of speech, and the preservation of the rule of law.
As such — and as more and more on the right have come to accept — Big Tech’s brazenly illegal monopolization of digital markets presents perhaps the preeminent threat to Americans’ civil and economic liberties today.
As the nation's 45th president, Donald J. Trump made headway on this problem.
However, his administration was unable to substantially complete the task before the end of his term. Over the two years since, team Biden has reversed course.
Today, the Democrats honor their Faustian bargain with the tech monopolists by oscillating between implausible denial of and reliable support for the censorship of their political detractors.
Washington insiders of every stripe, meanwhile, have returned to putting personal ties to the industry above the common good.
And all turn a blind eye to the suffocating market consolidation, and abusive exclusionary conduct, used by Big Tech to deny consumers a choice and new innovators a chance.
Nevertheless, amidst the Biden Big Tech retrenchment, one figure in Washington has diverged from the pack, and emerged as an intriguing fellow-traveler to conservatives in their mission to rein in digital monopolists: Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan.
Though Khan is often identified with the radical progressive wing of the Democratic Party — and not entirely without cause — a fair-minded examination of her tenure thus far reveals a more nuanced portrait: that of an accidental ally to law-and-order traditionalists and proverbial strange bedfellows to free enterprise advocates.
There is plenty in the Khan FTC agenda with which conservatives will disagree.
That’s to be expected.
But she ought to be applauded when she gets it right, as indeed she has, at least more often than is discussed or popularly held.
Since her nomination to the FTC, Khan’s avowed focus and stated pledge was vigorous enforcement of federal antitrust statutes.
Those laws were the product of early Republican leaders, from John Sherman to Theodore Roosevelt, who recognized that excessive economic concentration by private actors poses just as serious a threat to free and competitive markets as improvident intervention by the government.
Far from anti-business, antitrust enforcement has long been Conservatives’ preferred method for restraining entrenched monopolies and policing their abusive conduct.
A free and competitive market obviates the need for heavy-handed regulation, after all, insofar as firms are forced to discipline one another, to the benefit of consumers.
Refreshingly, then, Khan seems to grasp what all Conservatives ought to remember: that antitrust enforcement is, in fact, key to preserving the dynamism and strength of the American economy.
This is likely why she was confirmed by a wide, bipartisan Senate majority including conservatives like Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and others.
That Khan’s confirmation drew support from across the aisle may seem unusual these days, but the tendentiousness of the present political mood tends to obscure the simple fact that antitrust enforcement is, at its core, an exercise in law enforcement.
Just as the left’s leniency on crime has had the predictable effect of endangering decent citizens while emboldening criminals, a hands-off approach to antitrust enforcement under both the Obama and Bush administrations had the effect of stifling new market entry and rival innovation while further entrenching incumbent firms.
For too long, Big Tech was given a pass by both parties in Washington; now Republicans and Democrats alike can agree that it’s time to end the chronic under-enforcement of antitrust laws in digital markets.
The Trump administration made the first serious attempt when its top competition officials — Joe Simons, as chair of the FTC, and Makan Delrahim, as head of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice — brought landmark cases aimed at reigniting innovation and reinvigorating market competition.
And though the Biden administration has reflexively moved to reverse Trump policies across the board, Khan has distinguished herself with a commitment to continuing what her predecessors began and to rehabilitating antitrust enforcement in digital markets.
For example, after a Trump-era FTC action against Facebook was dismissed, she stood by the case and resolutely refiled suit.
In so doing, Khan has proven faithful to the American antitrust laws, and at a time when they’re needed most. Recent revelations that Facebook strategically over-hired employees — paying them to do practically nothing and merely so as to deny their services to competitors — illustrates the dangers of excessive concentration; namely, warped market incentives and the resulting distortions in the allocation of both capital and labor.
Daily reports, stretching back a decade, of Google warding off competition by cornering, copying, and crushing disruptive rivals demonstrate the lasting harm of abusive, exclusionary conduct; in particular, the stifling of innovation and resulting stagnation of consumer choices.
Sensible and vigorous FTC enforcement can address many of those problems, and pay dividends in other fields as well.
In the same way that Khan has cast a spotlight on tech consolidation, back in 2020 President Trump defied the D.C. consensus by critiquing concentration in the defense industry.
As The American Conservative points out, endless mergers in that sector have undermined America’s military readiness and saddled taxpayers with ever-growing costs.
In the years since, scrutiny from Khan’s FTC has thwarted the proposed Lockheed-Aerojet merger, a deal panned by experts and identified by Trump Defense Department official Donald Loren as a national security threat.
When considering that Big Tech has consistently promoted China’s interests, while hollowing out competition and consumer choice here at home, rigorous antitrust enforcement like Khan’s becomes a national security imperative no less than economic prerogative.
Finally, in an age when virulent partisan politics seems to cast a pall over government — and many Conservatives fear the loss of the impartial and good-faith application of the law — Khan has shown sincerity and fidelity to her oath and office.
In contrast to the Biden administration’s ideological weaponization of government agencies, Khan has refused to relent in holding Big Tech accountable, notwithstanding their proven willingness to leverage their dominance to her party’s advantage. (Here, Conservatives ought to take note of a familiar theme, for as Christopher Bedford put it recently in The Federalist, there’s little remaining appetite on the right for "rushing like a battered wife to bail out the corporations that wield their massive power against ordinary Americans.")
She has also — though, in truth, not as reliably — matched her impartiality in enforcement with a good-faith commitment to the statutory mandate and limits of her office.
For instance, she is one of the few federal officials to stand athwart the "environmental, social, and governance" movement and to resist heavy pressure from progressives to exploit her enforcement authority in service of unrelated policy aims.
Last year, in an article in The Wall Street Journal, "ESG Won't Stop the FTC," Khan admirably reassured the public and the markets that the FTC exists to "prevent illegal mergers, not to make the world a better place," which is "often a job for legislators and other policymakers."
Despite what are, no doubt, her own personal sympathies for the ESG movement and its aims, Khan’s recognition that her oath of office is not an open mandate for liberal activism should be celebrated by Conservatives for its integrity.
To those concerned with the monopolization of digital markets, and to those committed to an economy unburdened by excessive consolidation and predatory behavior, Khan’s pledge of impartial and vigorous antitrust enforcement should be as welcomed as it was unexpected.
Bravo, Chair Khan. And with two Republican seats on the FTC currently vacant, it is crucial that Republicans nominate individuals who are — however else they differ from Khan — similarly willing to stand in the breach and stand up to Big Tech.
Ziven Havens is the policy director at Bull Moose Project, and organization centered around training and developing the next generation of America First leaders and policies.