Sue the Messenger: Trump's DOJ Goes After Big Tech

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The Trump administration has followed through on a promised war against big tech, suing Google over alleged antitrust activities because its ad platform and search tool happen to be more popular by far than anybody else's. Eleven states joined the feds in the suit.

"If the government does not enforce the antitrust laws to enable competition," the deputy attorney general said in a lofty statement this morning, "we could lose the next wave of innovation ... and Americans may never get to see the next Google." I am about as sure that this is about advancing innovation as I am that it's just coincidence the 11 states also suing happen to be red states, and that the lawsuit was filed exactly 2 weeks before Election Day. 

As CNET reports, the DOJ's action was controversial even within the department: "Some of the attorneys were concerned the aggressive timeline ... was to ensure the Trump administration gets credit for taking on a big tech company." 

But there's more. Yesterday, Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows went on morning television to warn that there will be still more lawsuits against the tech giants, namely social media companies, which the president and his cronies have repeatedly accused of bias against Republicans — their latest fury being that the Twitter accounts of those aiming to spread the New York Post's widely debunked report on Joe Biden's son were either censored or frozen. (More than 50 former intelligence officials have signed a letter casting doubt on the veracity of that story, maintaining it has all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.)

By the way, the best part of Meadows' appearance on "Fox & Friends" was when he played free press advocate:

"They're now starting to censor, actually, reporters. That's a dangerous place for them to go when they're the arbiter of what they deem to be the truth."

And what the media is deeming to be the truth at the moment is the work of thousands of pollsters and oddsmakers predicting an overwhelming Biden victory on Nov. 3. If that comes to pass, expect all the noise about the evils of big tech, and the rest of Trump's personal vendettas masked as righteous crusades on behalf of the "people," to get drowned out by the sound of all those leather wingtips and low-heel pumps bolting for the exits. 

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