You don’t have to be a “Khanservative” to want strong antitrust enforcement

The Biden administration has made antitrust enforcement a priority. It has filed actions against major airlines like Jet Blue and, yes, numerous cases against Big Tech. Many of the Biden administration’s antitrust efforts have received strong conservative support. So much so that it inspired the Wall Street Journal to introduce a new term into antitrust nomenclature: ‘Khanservatives’.

The attribution refers to conservatives who support Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan’s relentless push to return antitrust enforcement to a more trust-busting style. Libertarian Big Tech proponents use the term “Khanservative” as an epithet to treat all conservative support for antitrust enforcement as principled.

That view is patently wrong.

Republicans have a long tradition of pushing back on concentrated authorities. President Theodore Roosevelt tried to break monopolies. President Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department has broken AT&T’s monopoly on interstate telecommunications networks. Judge Robert Bork supported the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Microsoft in the 1990s. And the Trump administration launched antitrust investigations into Apple and Google.

Another flaw in the criticism of anti-monopoly conservatives is that the cases that gained the most conservative support in the Biden administration were not initiated by Chairman Khan, but by the Justice Department. And that makes sense. The department’s approach follows a more traditional path toward antitrust enforcement by adhering to a consumer welfare framework.

The Justice Department’s cases against Apple and Google are good examples of this. The department makes strong arguments that both Apple and Google have extraordinary market power and are abusing that power in their respective markets – arguments that recall its enforcement against Microsoft in the 1990s.

Take the department’s Google Search case, which the Trump administration initiated. Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr, who brought the case, said that “the antitrust case against Google is a Republican project.” There are also clear problems with monopoly abuse here. Google has been accused of hiding articles, blocking political emails it doesn’t support, and quashing any innovation in the search market that threatens its dominance.

Additionally, conservatives from the Claremont Institute and the Heritage Foundation have joined together in support of the case against Apple. As Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) points outThe Justice Department’s Apple case builds on an investigation that began under the Trump administration. It accuses Apple of killing competitors who challenge its dominance. Just ask Beeper Mini, which competed directly with Apple’s iMessage, or the 343,000 apps the company launched from the App Store with no explanation other than that they might violate user privacy – all while TikTok is considered a ” essential” app is listed, mind you. It also enforces monopoly prices of 30 percent for merely existing on the App Store – the only store Apple allows on its devices.

Worse, Apple and Google are entering into cartel-like agreements, such as making Google Search Safari and Google’s Gemini the iPhone’s main AI tool by default, to ensure that both can lock in consumers and maintain their respective monopolies without competing directly.

Both cases play well with conservatives, in part because they have solutions approved by consumer welfare standards. For example, in Google’s case, browsers should let consumers (not Google) choose which search engine they want to use as the default. In Apple’s case, the obvious solution would be to let consumers – not Apple – choose which apps they want on their devices. This means that even if Apple wanted to make deals with Google’s Gemini, consumers wouldn’t be limited to just Apple’s offerings. They would have the freedom to download third-party apps and even app stores to compete directly with Apple’s (or rather Google’s) AI applications.

Support for these actions in no way implies support for what Khan’s FTC is doing, as its approach differs from that of the Department of Justice. In general, the FTC has tried to support competitors rather than increase consumer welfare. That approach would favor 20 companies that offer poor services over five companies that compete and innovate aggressively. The former is not something conservatives have ever supported.

Worse, the FTC’s approach appears less strategic and more publicity-oriented. The lawsuits against Microsoft and Meta may make headlines, but the massive losses in those cases have done little to advance antitrust enforcement. That includes the much-discussed case against Amazon, which experts have noted lacks a solid legal basis.

And while the Justice Department has done the hard work of thoroughly investigating companies before moving forward, the FTC hasn’t even completed its promised report on the privacy practices of the largest tech companies — a report that is nearly two years overdue .

In short, principled conservatives support strong antitrust enforcement. But you don’t have to be a Khanservant to support the Justice Department’s bipartisan work.

Joel Thayer is president of the Digital Progress Institute and an attorney based in Washington, DC

The views expressed in this article are those of the author.