The oligarchs never seem to do anything out of magnanimity, or even, I have to say, patriotism in most cases. Barry Diller recognizes that Trump will incinerate this country and Diller’s own business empire as well. So he’s giving mightily to Harris. Fine. Not fine is Diller’s stated inention to lobby her to dump Lina Kahn, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, who is putting speed bumps in the way of Diller and his fellow oligarchs’s determination to further centralize corporate power in the United States.
Monopolization and mergers have been disastrous for America, eliminating choice, competition, diversity. Neither Democratic nor Repulican administrations have pursued anti-trust action in more than 40 yars. Biden’s administration is the first. First Diller called Kahn “a dope,” having apparently decided that juvenile and idiotic Trumpian epithet is the new coin of the realm. Then he said he wasn’t a dope, but she is anti-business. Ludicrous.
If any attempt to made to protect the public interest from moguls’ insatiable hunger to consume everything in sight, oligarchs like Diller start to howl that they’re being victmized, that business itself is in the rifle sights. Bullshit. Oligarchal consolidation is.
Harris is reportedly keeping a distance from Kahn, thus dampening progressive enthusiasm. It’s the same mistake that almost every Democrat has been making for forty years. Candidates need voters more than they need moguls.
Lina Kahn is a genuine advocate for the intersts of Americans, particularly non-wealthy ones. She must not be sacrificed to the greed and myopia of Diller and his ilk.