Thread by @KarlBode

I guess people still don't know this despite 40 years of historical record, but the GOP is never going to vote when it matters in favor of meaningful antitrust reform. Not without dumb caveats that undermine the effort.

protocol.com/policy/antitru…

Like the idea that ted cruz and Marsha Blackburn in particular could give the slightest shit about antitrust reform and productively reining in corporate power is just absolute fantasy, and yet here we are

The only reason the GOP is even supporting these very narrow and problematic antitrust reform bills (that only focus on big tech and ignore telecom, banking, etc.) is they see it as a path toward some leverage in the quest to force them to carry race baiting propaganda

And even then it's a limited number of republicans, whose votes STILL probably won't be there when you actually need them

the entire mantra of the GOP for 40 straight years has been that monopolies are great, mindless consolidation is great, unchecked corporate power is great, and the government should be powerless and mute in the face of any challenges this creates

yet for two years I've read stiries about how there's "new bipartisan support for antitrust reform" when we're only talking about extremely narrow bills with very real problems that STILL will have a very hard time passing

to even get a handful of GOP senators on board "antitrust reform" had to be completely redefined and narrowed down to "only big tech" (telecom doesn't exist in this alt. reality), and then narrowed down even further to only companies with a $600B market cap

and despite 3 years of the GOP performatively whining about the power of big tech (which again they only care about as far as it pertains as to being able to spread party propaganda online) they STILL probably won't wind up voting for anything useful without caveats