Thread by @matthewstoller

1. Ok, I'm going to tell a quick story about how Republican Senator @SenToomey is sabotaging the GOP agenda on big tech and China. It's a subtle story, but here's how he's doing it. Last year, Trump's FTC filed suit to break up Facebook. But it wasn't just a GOP move.

2. In fact, GOP commissioners @FTCPhillips and @CSWilsonFTC voted *against* the suit. The Republican Chair Joe Simons, plus Democrats @chopraftc and @RKSlaughterFTC, voted for it. So it was 3-2 'break 'em up.' And Facebook then banned Trump and conservatives.

3. The suit is the result of FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra's work, who has a track record of helping honest businesses. Example: Chopra stood for Made in USA labels over Chinese counterfeiters when his GOP colleagues did not. The GOP stance angered Trump. nytimes.com/2019/04/17/us/…

4. When he was confirmed, Chopra set out an aggressive tone on corporate crime, essentially going after big tech with a memo saying 'FTC orders are not suggestions.' He opposed the $5B parking ticket to FB over Cambridge Analytica. epic.org/2018/05/ftc-co…

5. Chopra has stood up for franchises, probably the most common form of small and medium size business in America. He's a populist, pro-America vs the CCP and Sheryl Sandberg. The GOP is unhappy with Biden, but someone like Chopra is the best they can get.

6. So Chopra is an aggressive yet mainstream regulator. Tough on China, tough on big tech, honest, not partisan. Last month, Biden elevated Chopra to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he pledges to continue addressing big tech and China. mattstoller.substack.com/p/rohit-chopra…

7. There's a bunch of stuff in finance on big tech, including Facebook's attempt to create a global currency, and behavioral ads and usage of data. There's also the digital payments infrastructure race with China. The CFPB matters here.

8. So what happens to Chopra? Yesterday, @SenToomey, the Republican overseeing Chopra's nomination, attacks Chopra's "aggressive anti-business stances" at the FTC. Says he won't vote for him. And gets 11 other Republican Senators, who aren't paying attention, to say NO as well.

9. Now Chopra's nomination will go to the Senate floor. The vote was partisan and ugly, and a result of @SenToomey's choice in the Banking Committee to prioritize the interests of large dominant firms and Chinese interests over actually addressing threats to America.

10. The GOP is in the midst of an institutional crisis, where their voters really want action to address the private governments of big tech and to take on Chinese threats to American sovereignty. Yet their institutional actors are libertarian and oppose the people doing so.

11. Fortunately, @SenToomey is retiring in 2022, because he knows that his time is over. But he can still maintain a libertarian status quo in the face of the desire of the right to address big tech and China.

12. I hope conservatives start to address this institutional gap between their stated agenda and what their leaders are doing. Because neither China nor big tech are standing still. And honest business and American liberty is dying.

13. /Fin