Enforcing antitrust law is socialism — unless you're the monopoly paying the lobbyist who says so

Responding to: Socialism's war on success has a new champion — and he’s running for Senate in Michigan · 2026-07-30

What the Piece Argues

Former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel argues that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed represents a dangerous socialist threat, not because of standard government-ownership socialism, but because of his support for stronger antitrust enforcement and regulation of large tech companies. She contends that El-Sayed’s alignment with Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and former FTC Chair Lina Khan signals an anti-business philosophy that treats “success as suspect” and the federal government as “a weapon to punish companies for innovating, competing and winning in the marketplace.” She warns that the American Innovation and Choice Online Act would impose “punitive, European-style regulations” on successful American companies. The piece is primarily a warning to Republicans not to be complacent and to articulate a free-market alternative rather than just labeling opponents extremists.

Receipts

The piece relabels antitrust enforcement as “socialism” — a category error that erases 130 years of Republican antitrust tradition and the actual federal-court finding that the targeted companies operate illegal monopolies.

The framing wants you to believe that antitrust enforcement against large tech companies is a socialist attack on innovation and success.

What’s really going on is that antitrust enforcement — including the very bill McDaniel attacks — targets specific, judicially confirmed anticompetitive conduct by monopolistic platforms. In August 2024, the U.S. District Court for D.C. found Google maintains an illegal monopoly in general search services and search text advertising. The AICOA would prohibit platforms from self-preferencing their own products over competitors’ — the same conduct at the heart of that finding. McDaniel chairs the Competitiveness Coalition, an industry lobby group opposing the regulations that would constrain the monopolistic concentration her funders depend on.

• Citation: The piece does not mention Judge Amit Mehta’s August 2024 ruling in United States v. Google LLC, Case 1:20-cv-03010 (D.D.C.). The AICOA targets the same self-preferencing conduct the EU’s Digital Markets Act already regulates.

The DEFCON Ladder

DEFCON 5

When to use: For a good-faith conservative or moderate friend who shares concerns about “government overreach” and worries about where the left is headed on economic policy.

There’s a real conversation to have here — and it’s one conservatives used to lead. The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed by a Republican Congress in 1890 and signed by a Republican president. Theodore Roosevelt earned the name “trust-buster” for breaking up Standard Oil. This isn’t ancient history — it’s the foundational principle of free-market competition.

What the piece calls “punishing companies for innovating” is enforcing the laws that let small businesses compete against giants. When a federal judge ruled that Google operates an illegal monopoly — controlling 90 percent of search traffic and rigging its ad auction — that wasn’t socialism. That was the market working the way free-market theory says it should.

The author chairs the Competitiveness Coalition — an industry lobby group opposing the very regulations that would break up monopolistic concentration. The small-business owner in Grand Rapids who can’t compete against a platform controlling the entire search marketplace has more in common with antitrust enforcement than with the monopolies it targets. The piece’s framing serves the monopolies, not the free market.

DEFCON 4

When to use: For social media, group chats, or any setting where the audience is watching but not yet fully engaged — make the operation funny enough to share, then make it clear enough to land.

So let’s get this straight. Ronna McDaniel — former RNC chair, current hired lobbyist for the Competitiveness Coalition — wrote an op-ed arguing that enforcing the laws against monopolies is socialism. The Sherman Act. 1890. Republican Congress. Republican president. The law that broke up Standard Oil. Now a lobbyist funded by the monopolies wants you to believe that enforcing that law is a communist plot. That’s like a burglar hiring a publicist to call the cops “anti-property-rights.”

Meanwhile Abdul El-Sayed — a doctor who wants Americans to stop going bankrupt from medical bills — is the dangerous radical. Not the corporation that cornered a market so thoroughly a federal judge had to step in. Not the platforms that bury competition below their own products. The guy who wants to enforce the law is the extremist. The company that broke the law is the innovator.

Brenda in Kalamazoo paying $400 a month for insulin she needs to live is not worried about Google’s quarterly earnings. She’d like somebody to do something about the three companies that control her supply and set her price. But sure — that’s socialism.

DEFCON 3

When to use: When the audience is past persuasion and needs the full operation named at scale — scorched-earth, receipts deployed with cumulative force, the indictment complete.

Here is the vocabulary lesson this piece needs you to fail. When a Republican lobbyist funded by monopolistic tech corporations tells you that enforcing the laws against monopolies is socialism, she is not confused about what socialism means. She is counting on you being confused about what the Sherman Act means.

Here is what the piece calls “punishing companies for innovating, competing and winning”: Google was found by a federal court to operate an illegal monopoly in search. Not alleged. Not argued. Found. Judge Amit Mehta, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, August 2024. The AICOA would stop platforms from burying competitors’ products below their own. That’s the entire bill. It says: if you are big enough to control the whole marketplace, you cannot also rig the display shelf. The piece calls this “European-style regulation” as if Europe were a cautionary tale rather than the part of the world that looked at monopolistic concentration and said no.

The piece also tells you El-Sayed is a hypocrite because his wife allegedly doesn’t accept Medicare. Note the word allegedly. Note that even if true, it has exactly zero bearing on whether Medicare for All would lower costs for 330 million Americans. Personal destruction of the messenger is what you deploy when the policy argument is dead — and the policy argument is dead because the piece cannot say the sentence it would need to say: “Google was found to operate an illegal monopoly, and here is why the law should not apply to it.” That sentence does not appear. It cannot appear. The piece exists to make sure it never has to.

Ronna McDaniel chairs the Competitiveness Coalition. The piece does not disclose who funds it. The answer to who benefits is the answer to cui bono: the companies that would lose market power under antitrust enforcement are the companies that hire people like McDaniel to call antitrust enforcement socialism. This is not a theory. This is a business model. The piece is the product.

DEFCON 2

When to use: This is written to the person who shared or forwarded this piece. The force is proximity. Speak as if addressing them alone, carrying the full weight of what they circulated.

You forwarded a piece that calls antitrust enforcement socialism. Here is what it carries.

The piece is written by Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Competitiveness Coalition — an industry lobby group opposing the regulations that would constrain monopolistic tech platforms. It argues that the federal government should not enforce the laws against monopolistic concentration. It calls this position “free markets.” It calls the enforcement position “socialism.”

In August 2024, a federal court found that Google operates an illegal monopoly in search and search advertising. That is not an opinion. That is a judicial finding — Judge Amit Mehta, D.D.C. The AICOA, which the piece attacks, would address the self-preferencing practices at the heart of that finding. The piece does not mention the ruling. It cannot mention the ruling. The ruling is the sentence that would make the rest of the piece incoherent.

You are carrying a document whose author is paid by the beneficiaries of the monopoly the courts found illegal. The piece asks you to believe that the enforcement is the danger and the monopoly is the innovation. You feel something tighten in your throat as you read it — not because the argument is wrong, but because somewhere in reading it you already noticed the shape of the omission, the empty space where the piece would have to say what Google was found to have done and why the law shouldn’t apply. That sentence is not in the piece. It was never going to be.

The prophet Amos wrote: “Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, ‘When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?’ — skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales.” The measure is rigged. The piece is the rigging. And the profit from it does not flow to you.

DEFCON 1

When to use: The cathartic apex. Frequent and hard, each one landing for force, gloves all the way off.

This fucking thing is a masterpiece of misdirection.

Ronna McDaniel — former RNC chair, current paid lobbyist for monopoly corporations — wrote you an op-ed in which antitrust enforcement is socialism. Let that sink in. The Sherman Act. 1890. Passed by a Republican Congress. Signed by a Republican president. The law that broke up Standard Oil. The law that exists because even in the Gilded Age, conservatives understood that monopoly is the enemy of free markets, not the product of them. And now a lobbyist funded by the monopolies wants you to believe that enforcing that law is a communist plot. That’s not analysis. That’s a fucking alibi.

And she knows the history she’s erasing. William Baxter — Ronald Reagan’s own antitrust chief, the man who engineered the AT&T breakup, the single most consequential antitrust action in modern American history — understood that competition requires enforcement. That was Reagan’s guy. The modern Republican position isn’t a continuation of conservative principle. It’s a corporate surrender, bought and paid for by the companies that lost under the old rules and decided to hire former party chairs to rewrite what “free market” means.

Google was found running an illegal monopoly in federal court — Judge Mehta, August 2024, not a goddamn editorial. An illegal monopoly in search and search advertising. Ninety percent of general search traffic. Ninety-five percent of search text advertising revenue. That’s not market dominance. That’s a toll booth on the entire American internet. The AICOA would stop platforms from rigging their own marketplaces. That’s the whole bill. It says you cannot be the umpire and the team at the same time. McDaniel calls this “punishing companies for innovating.” No. It’s punishing them for cheating. The distinction matters if you have a functioning bullshit detector, and the piece was engineered to shut yours off.

Amazon hit a two-trillion-dollar market cap while its third-party sellers — actual small businesses — were being systematically squeezed by an algorithm the company controlled. Meta bought Instagram and WhatsApp in acquisitions the FTC alleged in federal court were designed not to compete but to neutralize potential rivals. These aren’t op-eds. These are the subjects of congressional investigations and federal lawsuits. The only debate is what to do about it, and the piece’s answer is always: nothing.

The piece also attacks El-Sayed because his wife allegedly doesn’t accept Medicare. “Allegedly.” “Appears.” Two weasel words doing the work of an argument the piece can’t actually make — because the argument would be: “A doctor who doesn’t take Medicare shouldn’t advocate for Medicare for All,” which is like saying a guy driving on crumbled roads shouldn’t advocate for infrastructure repair. The personal attack is what you run when the policy argument is dead and you need the audience looking somewhere else.

Amos called these people out twenty-seven centuries ago — the ones who skimp on the measure, boost the price, and cheat with dishonest scales. The measure is still rigged. The house of free markets has become a monopoly’s temple, and the piece is the offering plate being passed by the priests who rigged the scale.

And here’s the part that should make your skin crawl: the closing tells you to “put forward our own bold colors,” to articulate “a clear, affirmative vision for economic growth.” That’s the language of leadership. The substance is the language of capture. The “vision” is: let the monopolies keep the market rigged, call the rigging “innovation,” and hire former party chairs to write op-eds calling anyone who objects a socialist.

Abdul El-Sayed is a doctor who wants Americans to stop going bankrupt from medical bills. Ronna McDaniel is a lobbyist who wants Google to keep rigging its ad auction. I’ll take the candidate who wants to enforce the goddamn law over the one who wants to protect the goddamn monopoly. Call me a radical if it makes you feel better. But don’t call it an argument. And don’t call it free markets. Free markets are what antitrust enforcement creates. The monopoly is what it destroys. If you can’t tell which one of those people is on your side, the piece did exactly what it was built to do — and what it was built to do was make sure you couldn’t.

Bonus Round

When to use: When the piece is being circulated in a context where you want the full indictment but need to keep the profanity contained — a family group chat, a professional forum — where the profanity shows up at key pressure points but never dominates.

You were sent a piece that calls a man a hypocrite for earning a paycheck while wanting to change the rules. You were told his wife’s medical billing is a scandal. You were told that enforcing the antitrust laws is a “radical economic agenda.” And you were told that a bill prohibiting monopolists from rigging search results for themselves is “European-style” punishment of success.

None of this is true. But the piece does not need to be true. It needs to be comfortable.

Let me name what the piece will not.

Americans in Michigan and across the country live with monopoly power every day. They pay more for groceries because two or three companies control entire supply chains. They earn lower wages because a handful of employers dominate labor markets. They cannot start a business because the platform gatekeepers control access to customers. These are not socialist conspiracy theories. These are documented outcomes of a forty-year experiment in antitrust non-enforcement. Even the Reagan administration’s own antitrust chief, William Baxter — who orchestrated the AT&T breakup, the single most consequential antitrust action in American history — understood that competition requires enforcement. The abandonment of that tradition is a departure from conservative principle, not a defense of it.

AICOA and Khan’s FTC are an attempt to return to that tradition. They are not “punishing success.” They are punishing the abuse of gatekeeper power — a distinction the piece collapses because admitting it would require admitting that the current system is rigged. The piece’s model of “free markets” is one in which once a company gets big enough, it gets to write the rules. That is not a free market. That is feudalism with a stock ticker.

You can vote for the candidate who says the system works fine, or for the one who says it’s broken for everyone except the people who own it. But don’t pretend the piece gives you a serious argument about which is true. It gives you a label — “socialist” — and hopes you won’t look past it to see the monopoly rents it is paid to protect.

That is the silence between the sentences. Let it sit.

Bonus Apex

When to use: In spaces where the goal is pure catharsis — a private message to someone who actually believes this shit, a Twitter thread where you’re done pretending to be reasonable — and the whole point is to say what everyone thinking is too polite to say.

Ronna McDaniel has written 1,200 words to call a guy a socialist hypocrite because he earns more than a living wage while wanting to change the system, and because his wife runs a goddamn medical practice that takes cash.

That’s not an argument. That’s opposition research on someone’s marriage. That’s “I looked through your tax returns and found you’re not a pauper.” That is the most desperate, hollow, intellectually bankrupt attack I have seen from a former RNC chair — and I remember when they ran against a guy who said “binders full of women.”

You want to know what’s really going on here? Abdul El-Sayed is a threat not because he’s a socialist. He’s a threat because he’s right about something that terrifies the people funding this piece: the monopoly problem is real, it’s measurable, and voters are starting to notice. Amazon’s market cap hit $2 trillion while its third-party sellers — actual small businesses — were being systematically starved by an algorithm the company controlled. Google’s search product steers traffic away from independent sites and toward Google’s own services with such regularity that it’s become a business model. Meta bought Instagram and WhatsApp in acquisitions the FTC alleged in federal court were designed not to compete but to neutralize potential rivals.

These are not opinions. These are the subjects of congressional investigations, FTC lawsuits, and bipartisan academic research. The only debate is what to do about it.

The piece calls enforcement of antitrust law “anti-business.” What utter horseshit. Antitrust enforcement is what keeps business from becoming serfdom. It’s what stops a gatekeeper from becoming a god. The non-compete rule Khan’s FTC issued was estimated to affect 30 million Americans who were locked into their jobs. That’s not anti-business. That’s pro-worker — which is the same goddamn thing as pro-competition, because competition for labor is what raises wages. (Yes, the FTC has since abandoned enforcement of the rule. But the 30 million figure tells you the scale of the problem — one the piece never acknowledges.)

And AICOA? The piece calls it “European-style.” Yeah, because Europe actually regulates its monopolists, and guess what — they still have successful tech companies. They still have innovation. They just have less of the specific kind of “innovation” that consists of figuring out new ways to screw the little guy.

This piece is a five-alarm fire from the people who know the jig is up. The monopoly rents are about to be threatened by a guy who actually believes the antitrust laws should be enforced, and they’re panicking. So they smear him with the only weapon they have left: calling him a socialist for wanting to enforce laws that have been on the books for 130 years.

I’ll take the candidate who wants to enforce the goddamn law over the one who wants to protect the goddamn monopoly. Call me a radical if it makes you feel better. But don’t call it an argument.