"Khanservatives"

[Greenbeard]

"Khan-heads" was right there for the taking. But okay.

I haven't heard of too many conservatives praising Biden's competition agenda, but apparently their anti-establishment leanings has turned some MAGA-types on to the muscular anti-trust posture that Biden's ushered in.

Legitimately a very interesting development, particularly since I'd normally associate some of these types with kneejerk embrace of deregulation for deregulation's sake. Guess not!

Biden’s Trustbuster Draws Unlikely Fans: ‘Khanservative’ Republicans

Since being appointed by President Biden three years ago, the 35-year-old Khan has turned the obscure federal agency into a high-profile battleship aimed at the big corporations she says have distorted markets and harmed consumers. Her aggressive actions against Big Tech and other industries have inflamed the business community, and not all have been successful. But in an anomaly in this partisan age, a group of conservatives has cheered her efforts, seeing her as a fellow traveler in the populist cause.

The “Khanservatives,” as they call themselves, tend to be younger and Trumpier, part of the growing ranks of Republicans who question unfettered markets and see big corporations as an adversary to their constituents.

“As the Republican Party becomes more working class, we’re less captive to the neolibertarian view that everything big business does to people is OK,” said Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who has interviewed Khan on his Newsmax show. His party, he said, “can’t be whores for big business and be the voice of the working class at the same time.”

But the Khanservatives’ ranks are growing—and some of her backers have speculated that if Trump wins this year’s election, he could reappoint her. “I would hope,” Gaetz said, “that whoever is the next FTC chair would continue many of the cases that Chair Khan has brought against predatory businesses.”

The bipartisan traction suggests Khan is tapping into a generational shift in attitudes toward corporations and markets. More Republicans are bucking their long alliance with big business and accusing corporations of hurting workers, stifling free speech and imposing a liberal agenda on employees and consumers. Their beefs with big business are different from liberals’ focus on workers’ rights and corporate greed, but on policy, the two sides sometimes end up in the same place.

In Congress and the courts, the Khanservatives are having an impact. In 2022, 39 Republicans voted for a bill that increased fees on corporations in order to provide more resources to the FTC and DOJ’s antitrust division to review proposed mergers and acquisitions. Some conservative judges have shown openness to the FTC’s novel legal approaches, including a recent opinion from the conservative Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the legitimacy of the agency’s attacks on so-called vertical mergers, which combine complementary companies from different parts of the supply chain.

 

[phoenix2020]

If you're going to regulate large businesses, do it with passion!

 

[Ginger Ale]

That's interesting, seeing Klanservatives, and their leader Trump, didn't seem give a shit about the autoworkers this year, I doubt these autoworkers care if they're working with a trans, or gay person, they do however care about their paycheck, and keeping their jobs.

 

[ataraxia]

Sounds like they have a real Khan-do attitude.

These are not folks who are just going to kick the Khan down the road.