Monthly Archives: January 2021

For the last several years, debate over the proper role of antitrust has not been limited to academics, economists, lawyers, and judges, but routinely includes politicians, journalists, and increasingly the general public. Critics of modern antitrust enforcement are raising concerns about increasing concentrations of economic power, especially in high-profile sectors such as internet search, social networking, and e-commerce. Some refer to these critics as antitrust populists, and label a growing group of such critics the New Brandeis School.

Many antitrust populists question whether the consumer welfare standard, with its focus on prices, output, and product quality, is capable of addressing harmful concentrations of economic power in the modern economy. Others argue that antitrust has a broader role to play in U.S. society; rather than focusing, as it now does, on anticompetitive conduct, these populists argue that antitrust should address a broad range of social ills, including wealth and income inequality, the influence of money in American politics, the erosion of privacy, and systemic threats posed by firms that are too big to fail. Some proposals would address these social ills by having antitrust enforcement agencies and courts directly consider them when reviewing conduct. But most proposals would use antitrust enforcement to attack these problems indirectly, through policies that their proponents argue would more aggressively promote open markets and competition.

Originally published in Antitrust Law Journal - December 2020.

Please see full Article below for more information.

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Antitrust Populism and the Consumer Welfare Standard: What Are We Actually Debating? - JD Supra

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --As Donald Trump's erratic behavior intensifies evidenced by a deluge of anti-democratic, authoritarian, dystopian, malicious actions and statements many observers struggle to grasp his objectives. Some are perplexed by his affinity for self-defeating and humiliating conduct. Others seek a rational or strategic purpose. Many resort to generalized explanations, such as his mental instability, his inability to accept that he lost the election, or his self-created alternate reality based on alternative facts (a.k.a., lies).

Yet, there are more specific explanations, rooted in Trump's psychological impairments. As Bradford Kane wrote in Pitchfork Populism: Ten Political Forces That Shaped an Election and Continue to Change America, Trump "inundates every American with insight into his character, motivations, objectives, needs, and temperament. He chose to rip away the veneer and expose his impulses. Rather than hide his psychological fabric, he has placed it in the public record." As the author details on pages 99-100 of the book, the five principal drivers of Trump's behavior are (summarily stated):

Trump's motives are among the many aspects of his and his administration's conduct that Kane exposed in Pitchfork Populism. The author's analysis and answers written when others were perplexed, confused or confounded have gained broad acceptance. Kane assessed a vast array of Trump's domestic and foreign policies, legislative efforts, executive orders, and public statements, identifying the forces that spawned Trump's pattern of malevolence, ignorance, incompetence, corruption, and cruelty. In the waning days of the Trump administration, rather than abating, these flaws are multiplying.

Fortunately, however, the political forces discussed in Pitchfork Populism that enabled the degradation of our political climate over the past four years can be harnessed to catalyze constructive, unifying progress. Under President-elect Joe Biden's leadership, these forces can be leveraged for a return to policy and actions based on long-held, widely-cherished American values, Constitutional principles, and norms of democracy that serve both parties' interests. The Biden-Harris administration's focus on unity, empathy, justice, and equity will elevate the prospect of bipartisan collaboration to aid, support, and benefit all Americans. The incoming administration's rational, stable, and fair approach to governing will reassert the best of our national character, and reclaim our global stature and leadership. While the outcome of Georgia's senate races will impact the extent of bipartisanship, most Republicans will value Biden's approach, recognizing it as an opportunity for meaningful, responsible progress on many issues.

Bradford Kane presents acute insights into the forces that led to the present situation, and assesses the path forward in the coming years for the country and world.

To schedule an interview with Brad Kane, or request a hardcover or eBook review copy, please contact:Mike Dougherty, Dougherty and Associates828-622-3285; [emailprotected]

SOURCE Bradford Kane

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Bradford Kane's Book, Pitchfork Populism, Identifies the Roots of Trump's Turmoil - PRNewswire

Britain faces an uncertain future as it finally pulls clear of the EUs orbit, continental commentators have predicted, its reputation for pragmatism and probity shredded by a Brexit process most see as profoundly populist and dangerously dishonest.

For us, the UK has always been seen as like-minded: economically progressive, politically stable, respect for the rule of law a beacon of western liberal democracy, said Rem Korteweg, of the Clingendael Institute thinktank in the Netherlands.

Im afraid thats been seriously hit by the past four years. The Dutch have seen a country in a deep identity crisis; its been like watching a close friend go through a really, really difficult time. Brexit is an exercise in emotion, not rationality; in choosing your own facts. And its not clear how it will end.

Britains long-polished pragmatic image had been seriously tarnished, agreed Nicolai von Ondarza, of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. But trust in the UK, too, had taken a heavy battering on the Brexit rollercoaster.

Thats particularly been the case over the past year, Von Ondarza said. Boris Johnson has always been seen as a bit of a gambler, displaying a certain flexibility with the truth. But observing him him as prime minister has only made that worse.

Germans tended to view international politics very much through the prism of international law, Von Ondarza said, so Johnsons willingness to ignore it in the form, particularly, of the internal market bill was deeply shocking.

The idea that youd willingly violate an international treaty that youd negotiated and signed barely eight months previously Thats just not something you do among allies, he said. That whole episode really damaged Britains credibility.

Others were more brutal still. In Der Spiegel, Nikolaus Blome said there was absolutely nothing good about Brexit which would never have happened had Conservative politicians not, to a quite unprecedented degree, deceived and lied to their people.

Much of the British media, Blome said, were complicit, constantly trampling on fairness and facts, leaving Britain captured by gambling liars, frivolous clowns and their paid cheerleaders. They have destroyed my Europe, to which the UK belonged as much as France or Germany.

But Johnsons lies were the biggest of all, he said: Take back control, Johnson lied to his citizens. But all the British government will finally have achieved is to have taken back control of a little shovel and a little sand castle.

The sovereignty in whose name Brexit was done remained, essentially, a myth, said Jean-Dominique Giuliani, of the Robert Schuman Foundation in France. It is history, geography, culture, language and traditions that make up the identity of a people, Giuliani said, not their political organisation.

It is wrong to believe peoples and states can permanently free themselves from each other, or take decisions without considering the consequences for their citizens and partners. Take back control is a nationalist, populist slogan that ignores the reality of an interdependent world Our maritime neighbour will be much weakened.

The German historian Helene von Bismarck doubted Brexit would end what she described as a very British brand of populism. British populism is a political method, not an ideology, and it does not become redundant with Brexit, she said.

Von Bismarck identified two key elements in this method: an emotionalisation and over-simplification of highly complex issues, such as Brexit, the Covid pandemic or migration, and a reliance on bogeymen or enemies at home and abroad.

Populists depend on enemies, real or imagined, to legitimise their actions and deflect from their own shortcomings, she said. If the EU has been the enemy abroad since 2016, it will steadily be replaced by enemies within: MPs, civil servants, judges, lawyers, experts, the BBC.

Individuals and institutions who dare to limit the power of the executive, even if it is just by asking questions, are at constant risk of being denounced as activists by the Johnson government, Von Bismarck said. Everyone has political motives except for the government, which seeks to define neutrality.

Brexit itself is being framed as the grand departure, the moment the UK is finally free and sovereign, when all problems can be solved with common sense and optimism justifying a more pragmatic approach to rules, constitutional conventions and institutions that actually amounts to a worrying disregard for the rule of law.

British populism would continue, she said, especially when the real, hard consequences of the pandemic and Brexit started to bite.

It is naive to expect a political style which ridicules complexity, presents people with bogeymen to despise, and prides itself on doing what it necessary even if elites and institutions get in the way, to lose its appeal in times of hardship, she said.

Elvire Fabry, of Frances Institut Jacques Delors, said the past four years had shown Europeans and Britons just how little we really knew each other. They had also revealed, she said, the fragility of a parliamentary system seen by many on the continent as a point of reference.

Its been difficult for us to anticipate, at times even to interpret, whats happened in the UK, Fabry said. The direction Johnson has taken the Conservative party in we didnt see that coming. The course hes setting for the country. The polarisation. And the way MPs have been bypassed since he became prime minister .

Most striking of all, she said, was how the politics prevailing in Britain had become detached from geopolitical reality from the way the world is developing. Its a political vision turned towards yesterdays world. Ideological. The way the trade deal focused on goods at the expense of services Its not the way the worlds going.

Painful as the Brexit process may have been for Europeans, however, it had at least demonstrated the reality and value of the single market, its rules and norms, and of the EUs basis in law, Fabry said. Those are at the heart of the European identity and defending them has given the union a new political maturity.

It had also, concluded Korteweg, served as a warning. I think its taught us all just how vulnerable our political processes are, he said. Just eight years ago, leaving the EU was a seriously fringe proposition in British politics, and now look where you are. So weve seen how fragile it all is, what weve built and how worth defending.

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View from the EU: Britain 'taken over by gamblers, liars, clowns and their cheerleaders' - The Guardian

Back in the mid-90s, when Tony Blair and I were picking Paul Keatings considerable political brain ahead of the 1997 election campaign, among the many wise, colourful observations made by the then Australian prime minister was his view that "you cant polish a turd". Boris Johnson seems determined to prove him wrong.

Johnson and his team had two big challenges in 2020. One, Brexit, was "planned" in that he led and won the European Union referendum campaign in 2016, helped knock out two prime ministers to get the job himself, and then won a good majority on the promise to "get Brexit done".

The second, COVID-19, was anything but planned, and I do not blame the government that it has come to dominate our lives. But I do blame it for the absolute mess it has made of both challenges,

Illustration: Simon LetchCredit:

and the damage done to lives, livelihoods and national reputation as a result. The thread that links them is a Prime Minister who prefers slogans to facts, promises of good times ahead to dealing with bad times now, cheery optimism to hard-headed analysis; who speaks of the world as he wants it to be, not as it is. That is Trumpian populism, and what is happening to our country now, on Brexit and on COVID-19, is what right-wing populism, and populists like Johnson, do.

His turd-polishing on COVID-19, presenting one of the worlds worst death rates and worst recessionary impacts as some great triumph, helped set him up for a huge turd-polishing operation on the Brexit deal, helped by the opposition announcing it would support the deal before it had seen it (provoking a rebellion not among Johnsons ranks but Labour leader Keir Starmers), the limit of a single day of parliamentary scrutiny for a 1246-page document covering huge swathes of our lives, and by several national newspapers which would not look out of place on North Korean news-stands, covering the Great Triumphs of Kim Il-bojo.

At every stage of the COVID-19 process from his boasting of shaking hands in hospitals, giving the go-ahead to huge sporting events like the Cheltenham races, telling us COVID-19 would be gone in 12 weeks, then back to normal by the northern summer, telling the world one country had to stand up against the virus without shutting down, and let it be us, telling us we would be free to meet and mingle, and travel countrywide for Christmas he has told us what he wants to believe, and what he thinks we want to hear.

And then, as happened again over Christmas, when a surge in new cases put paid to his plans for "five days of freedom", he has been brought crashing down to earth by those awful old things called facts.

Both as journalist and politician, Johnson has never much bothered with facts. Theyre inconvenient. They get in the way of the fun. The game. Which to Johnson is what politics has always been about. As a journalist, making up stories about "Brussels" banning bent bananas, insisting on one-size-fits-all condoms (based on Italian penis length) and, more seriously, being hellbent on building an EU super-state. As a politician, being the populist jester.

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Ill give him this: he is good at snappy slogans, whether "take back control" from the referendum, "oven-ready deal" (sic), from the 2019 election, "well send the virus packing"(which he has spectacularly failed to do) or "levelling up", his fraudulent claim that Brexit is about helping communities left behind, not rewarding the low-tax, low-regulation offshore philosophy favoured by those whose financial and political support made it happen.

He and his supporters are banging out the post-deal slogans now. Not just the best Christmas present, but "Blast-off Britain". When even by their own assessment this deal will take 4 per cent from the value of our economy, and when tariff-free, quota-free trade arrangements will depend on us not diverging too rapidly, or risk losing even more trade, and creating more bureaucracy, Blast-off Britain, even by his standards, seems over optimistic in the extreme.

As a Trumpian populist, he is great at slogans, terrible at governing; the worst possible Prime Minister, at the worst possible time, with a cabinet, every member appointed purely on the basis of loyalty to him and to Brexit, surely the least able collection of ministers the country has ever had.

The Americans, thank God, have got rid of their populist leader, and corrected their error of 2016. We now have to live with Johnson for some time yet, and the 2016 error for a whole lot longer. Happy New Year? No chance.

Alastair Campbell is a British journalist and political aide. He was former prime minister Tony Blairs spokesman, press secretary and director of communications and strategy.

Our Morning Edition newsletter is a curated guide to the most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up to The Sydney Morning Heralds newsletter here, The Ages here, Brisbane Times here, and WAtodays here.

Alastair Campbell is a British journalist and political aide. He was former prime minister Tony Blairs spokesman, press secretary and director of communications and strategy.

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With the worst possible PM at the worst possible time, Britain's got no chance of a happy new year - Sydney Morning Herald

Now that Donald Trump has signed the COVID-19 relief bill, resolving the crisis he instigated by denouncing it as a "disgrace" and insisting it be expanded to include much larger payouts to individuals, it's possible to assess just how the battle lines of partisan combat in Washington have shifted since the waning days of the Obama administration.

The answer is: hardly at all.

Ever since Trump defied expectations in 2016 by winning his party's nomination with a highly unorthodox message, a wide range of prognosticators, along with some of the party's elected officials, have suggested that the Republican future involves transforming the GOP into a "workers party." Such a party would mix standard Republican positions on taxes, judges, and abortion with defenses of key aspects of the welfare state that benefit the working class, including increased access to affordable medical care.

In sum: The entrepreneurial party of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, which sought to "reform entitlements" (read: gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid), would be replaced by a party that actively seeks to offer a helping hand to struggling American workers.

Trump's instincts do seem to point in precisely this direction. But he has proven to be such an atrocious negotiator, so incurious about the details of public policy, and so incapable of learning how to use the levers of power in Washington (beyond tweet-based rabblerousing) that he's accomplished less than nothing during the four years of his presidency. Instead of dragging his party to embrace an agenda less skewed toward the rich, he has ended up revealing that those who favor a more worker-friendly approach are vastly outnumbered and incredibly weak in the GOP.

That's unfortunate for Republicans and for the country as a whole.

America's two major parties are locked in a struggle over which of them will come to be seen as the party of the working class. In this battle, Democrats have a number of advantages rooted in their history going back nearly a century to the New Deal. But over the past decade or so, the party has drifted away from that legacy, doing better and better among those who live in economically flourishing cities and inner-ring suburbs, and shifting sharply to the left on cultural issues (race, gender, crime, and immigration).

These trends have alienated voters in exurban and rural areas (especially in the post-industrial Midwest). That has created an opening for Republicans to make inroads with an economically populist and culturally conservative message. That, in a nutshell, is Trumpism and it is potentially very potent at the ballot box. If Trump had taken a strong stand over the summer that the next COVID relief bill needed to include $2,000 checks for every American, and if he had repeated that line through the fall and combined it with his attacks on crime, urban unrest, and the threat of "socialism," he likely would have prevailed in the election.

Instead, the president said very little about the economy (beyond bragging about its pre-pandemic greatness) and next to nothing about the relief bill wending its way through Congress. That allowed Joe Biden to portray himself and his party as defenders of working people. When that familiar Democratic stance was combined with the Biden campaign's deft refusal to be baited into offering defenses of the culturally toxic behavior of rioters or endorsements for politically asinine slogans ("Defund the Police"), the result was a winning message.

Trump's last-minute acting out about the relief bill confirmed that his political instincts remain sound, even as he continues to be incapable of acting on them in a politically productive way. That's not only because of Trump's personal ineptitude. It's also a function of the ideological alignment of the parties, which hasn't changed much at all in the past four years. It was Nancy Pelosi, the head of the Democratic Party in the House, who jumped at the prospect of increasing the size of relief checks from $600 to $2,000 and Republicans in the same chamber who rejected it. Which is exactly what would have happened in 2014, 2004, 1994, or 1984.

Four years after Trump seized control of the GOP, Republicans are happy to playact cultural populism, lashing out against the "woke left" in order to burnish the party's working-class bona fides. But economic populism remains a bridge too far.

Which means, once again, that Washington's battle lines have moved very little over the past four years.

From here on out, the most sensible path forward for both parties is clear. Democrats will continue to portray themselves as a party of working people on economic issues and keep trying to placate the cultural left while also working to steer clear of its most extreme excesses. Republicans, meanwhile, will keep attacking the cultural left and using that red meat to portray themselves as aligned with ordinary Americans while also favoring economic policies that primarily benefit the wealthy and often leave working-class communities in ruins.

The details may have shifted somewhat through the decades, but the general shape of things has changed very little since the Obama administration and even since the Reagan administration. Trumpism pointed, haltingly, at another possibility. But as its namesake prepares to leave office in a spasm of election-fraud conspiracism and impotent acting out against his own party's plutocratic priorities, the much-discussed re-alignment of the parties appears to be stillborn, with the entrenched positions of both parties as fixed as ever.

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Trump fails to redraw politics' battle lines - The Week

Congressional Democrats are pushing to give most Americans $2,000 stimulus checks, arguing that this is a fast and direct way to help millions of Americans as they struggle with the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. President Trump supports $2,000 payments, too, but most congressional Republicans dont. Because of that congressional GOP opposition, the $2,000 checks arent likely to become law. But Democrats think they have a winning issue electorally ahead of next weeks U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia.

Public opinion does appear to be on Democrats side. Seventy-eight percent of Americans said they supported these $2,000 stimulus checks, compared to 17 percent who opposed them, according to a poll conducted Dec. 22-28 by the left-leaning Data for Progress. Similarly, a survey conducted by Business Insider and Survey Monkey on Dec. 21 found that 62 percent of Americans said that the $600 stimulus checks adopted in a recent bill is not enough; 76 percent said the payments should be more than $1,000.

[Why A Split Verdict In Georgia Isnt That Crazy]

So Democrats are pushing the issue hard. Georgia Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have strongly embraced the $2,000 payment plan. Their Republican opponents, Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, are also suggesting that they support the payments. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is creating procedural roadblocks to stop the $2,000 payments from passing the Senate, giving Ossoff and Warnock the opportunity to suggest that Loeffler and Perdue are impediments to the payments, since they back McConnell continuing as majority leader.

So this all seems good for the Democrats, right? Well, maybe. Democrats are pushing a popular idea right before what look like very-close elections, and the Republican Party is blocking it. The issue could well help Warnock and Ossoff in Georgia next week. But we shouldnt be so sure, for a few reasons

First, its not clear that voters care that much about policy when deciding who to vote for.

The most reliable predictor of how Americans will vote is partisanship: Republican-leaning voters back Republican candidates, and Democratic-leaning voters back Democratic candidates. Those partisan labels and identities, of course, contain ideological and policy overtones: The Republican Party, rhetorically at least, is warier of big, broad-based spending programs than the Democratic Party. But those overtones dont seem to drive vote choice. There are plenty of examples of a party pushing unpopular ideas without its voters switching to the other party. For instance, the GOP agenda in 2017 and 2018, trying to repeal Obamacare and cut taxes for corporations, was fairly unpopular with Republican voters, but those voters still overwhelmingly backed GOP candidates in the 2018 midterms.

The Data for Progress polling suggests that 73 percent of Republicans nationally support the $2,000 payments, including 52 percent who strongly support them. Based on those numbers, its almost certainly the case that a majority of Republicans in Georgia support the payments. Indeed, a DFP poll of Georgia likely voters conducted Nov. 15-20 found that 63 percent of voters in the state said that they would be more likely to support a candidate who favored a $1,200 payment to most Americans as part of a COVID-19 relief package. That 63 percent number also suggests these payments are broadly popular and getting some backing from rank-and-file GOP voters.

But its very unlikely that many Republicans will back the Democratic candidates in Georgia because of this issue. Yes, both elections appear to be close, so even a small shift in voting preferences matters. But in such a close election, if either Ossoff and Warnock narrowly win, I would be hesitant to ascribe that victory to Democrats support of this stimulus payment and McConnells opposition, as opposed to factors like Democrats strong get-out-the-vote operations in the state, the weaknesses of Loeffler and Perdue as candidates and the growing liberalism of Georgia.

[Related: Why Georgia Isnt Like The Other Battleground States]

What about swing voters/independents and other people who arent necessarily tied to one of the two parties? Well, the evidence suggests that these kinds of voters dont necessarily have well-defined policy preferences and also dont pay that much attention to politics. So perhaps this stimulus debate convinces them that Republicans in Washington need to be dethroned. Alternatively, perhaps these voters arent as tuned into this stimulus debate as much as, say, Loefflers ads casting Warnock as a radical or Warnocks ads portraying himself as a nice dog owner.

Second, voters may like Democratic economic ideas more than Democrats themselves.

Over the last several years, ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage and to expand Medicaid have passed in conservative-leaning states where GOP state legislators and governors had blocked similar policies. But Republicans are still winning elections in these areas. This happened in Florida this year. A proposal to gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026 passed in the Sunshine State, with 61 percent of voters embracing it. But Joe Biden, who strongly supports a $15 minimum wage, won only 48 percent of the vote in Florida, compared to 51 percent for Trump, who has been more circumspect about minimum wage increases.

These voting patterns are another illustration that partisanship overrides or is simply independent from voters policy preferences, but there are other potential reasons for this disconnect. Voters may support certain economically populist ideas but may be wary of too much economic populism if they elect a Democratic candidate. Some voters may support Democrats economic populism but not back the party because it is too progressive on issues like abortion rights or policing. For example, in the 2016 election, Lee Drutman, a scholar at New America and a FiveThirtyEight contributor, found that voters who lean conservative on issues like immigration but who lean left on economic issues were more likely to back Trump than Hillary Clinton. And lastly, many voters are simply not attuned to which party or candidate favors which policies.

When you bring this to Georgia, you could easily imagine some swing voters who support $2,000 payments to Americans but are even more supportive of backing the GOP Senate candidates and ensuring that Democrats in Washington dont have control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

Finally, Trump has scrambled the politics on stimulus checks.

You could also imagine some voters are just confused about this issue. If Trump strongly supports the $2,000 checks and Loeffler and Perdue are indicating support for them, too, it might not be totally clear to voters that the broader Republican Party still opposes the payments and is the roadblock to them being approved. Particularly in this lame-duck period for Trump, McConnell is the most important Republican in Washington in terms of policy. But Trump remains the defining figure for the party to most voters and in an electoral context. If Trump is declaring he supports the $2,000 payments, voters in Georgia might conclude that Republicans more broadly support them, even as McConnell is blocking the payments and Loeffler and Perdue are effectively helping him do so, as is the case here.

[What The Early Vote In Georgia Can And Cant Tell Us]

All that said, this debate about the direct payments coinciding with the Georgia election has shown how electoral politics and governance intersect in interesting ways. While it is not clear if the debate over the stimulus payments will affect the election results, it is clear that the upcoming election has affected the stimulus debate. Republicans were reportedly worried about opposing direct payments on the eve of the Georgia race, helping ensure that $600 for most Americans was put into the COVID-19 economic stimulus that Trump signed into law on Sunday. Republicans are now worried about a potential electoral backlash in Georgia from opposing the $2,000 payments. Those electoral concerns have resulted in Loeffler and Perdue, who usually take more conservative stands, breaking with McConnell and other Republicans to publicly support the payments. (Of course, Loeffler and Perdue are likely to go along with McConnells strategies to make sure the $2,000 payments dont become law.)

So Democrats may have figured out how to get more populist policies adopted: Push them around election time. But even if Ossoff and Warnock win next week, the evidence that popular economic policies are automatically electoral boosts for Democrats will be somewhat weak.

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Will The Debate Over $2,000 Stimulus Checks Help Democrats In Georgia? - FiveThirtyEight