As the 2024 election approaches, advisors to former President Trump are reportedly preparing plans to overhaul federal agencies they see as “woke” bureaucracies. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under Lina Khan is a top target. Market Institute President Charles Sauer explains in Real Clear Markets that Khan’s push for politically driven, “hipster” antitrust has raised concerns on the free-market right—and inspired support from “Khanservatives” like JD Vance, who see antitrust as a tool to punish “woke” companies.
“Charles Gasparino, writing in the New York Post, says that advisors to former President (and current Republican presidential candidate) Donald Trump are drawing up plans for President Trump to “…. take an ax to the federal government’s vast ‘woke’ bureaucracy” if he wins the November election.
According to Gasparino, one of the targets of the (metaphorical) presidential ax will be the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Under current Chair Lina Khan, the FTC has abandoned the agency’s focus on how mergers, acquisitions, and other increases in market power affect consumers. Instead, Chair Khan has adopted a “holistic” (or “hipster”) approach that considers how a business’s actions affect workers, communities, and even—at least in the case of big tech—democracy.
Chair Khan has been very aggressive in implementing her agenda. Under her leadership, the FTC has filed a record number of cases challenging mergers in industries ranging from grocery stores to handbags, with a particular focus on big tech companies like Amazon.
Chair Khan is one of—if not the—most criticized of Biden’ appointees by the free-market right. However, she also attracted some fans on the populist right. Among the most prominent ”Khanservatives” is Republican Vice Presidential nominee, JD Vance. Vance has said Chair Khan is “doing a pretty good job” at the FTC.
It is no surprise that Vance has embraced Khanservatism. A right-wing version of hipster antitrust is in line with his goal of getting conservatives to, as he put it, “…. seize the administrative state for our own purposes.”
Like most Khanservatives (and other members of the populist or “post-libertarian” right), Senator Vance is particularly interested in using antitrust to punish big tech for “deplatforming” conservatives and others whose social media posts offend woke sensibilities, contradict the progressive agenda, or harm the election prospects of Democrats. Speaking of the problems of big tech censorship, Vance told CNBC , “I do think that there should be an antitrust solution to it.”
Vance also called for the government to break up Google after its artificial intelligence inadvertently posted images of black founding fathers. At the time Vance said, “the monopolistic control of information in our society resides with an explicitly progressive technology company.” The use of the adjective “progressive” suggests Vance would not want to break up Google if its AI posted images supported by conservatives. Vance and his fellow Khanservatives are the mirror image of progressives like Chair Khan. Where progressives want to use antitrust to advance a “woke” agenda, Vance and other Khanservatives want to use antitrust to punish “woke” businesses.
The Khanservatives also resemble progressives in their lack of concern about using antitrust to punish private social media companies for their content policies—an approach which violates the First Amendment. Khanservatives also ignore how the most egregious examples of online censorship were the result of social media companies caving to pressure from the Biden Administration.
House Committee Chair Jim Jordan and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul have introduced the Free Speech Protection Act. This Act makes it a federal crime for any federal employee or employee of a federal contractor to interfere in any way with an American’s ability to exercise their First Amendment rights. Anyone violating the law faces fines of up to $10,000 and a lifetime ban on future federal employment. This is the type of legislation one would expect to easily pass a Republican Congress and be signed into law by a Republican president. However, Senator Vance and his allies may convince Trump and the GOP leadership to ignore the bill so that Republicans can use government power to intimidate social media and other private companies.”
