Populists on the left and right want to crack down on Big Tech
Eric Cortellessa 21, staff writer at TIME, covering Congress and national politics, formerly the Washington Monthly’s investigative editor, graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, 5-25-2021, "The Conservatives Out to Stop the New Bipartisan Antitrust Movement," Washington Monthly, https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/05/25/the-conservatives-out-to-stop-the-new-bipartisan-antitrust-movement/ //MRK
Last spring, as the pandemic was taking hold, Ashley Baker, a 32-year-old conservative policy advocate, noticed a trend that alarmed her: A growing number of Republican elected officials were starting to join Democrats in attacking corporate monopolies. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley had introduced several bills to crack down on Big Tech, and more GOP legislators were showing an interest in doing the same. Texas Senator Ted Cruz had argued that “Big Tech is out of control” and posed a threat to the future of American democracy. Colorado Representative Ken Buck, ranking member of the House Antitrust Committee and a former member of the Tea Party, had started floating the idea of creating new regulations for oligopolistic corporations. “I was one of those people that believed that the market could correct itself,” Buck said, “until I saw the cheating.”
At the same time, then President Donald Trump was flailing. His botched response to the coronavirus outbreak was clear, and his approval ratings hit new lows. There was newfound reason to believe that Joe Biden could clinch the White House, and an emerging bipartisan consensus—or something resembling it—on antitrust meant that it could be one of the few areas where the status quo was truly at risk.