We told you this was coming months ago.
The Trump Division of Justice (DOJ) says it has initiated a broad investigation of Netflix’s enterprise practices and it’s deliberate $82.7 billion merger with Warner Brothers. The Trump DOJ’s pretense is that they’re simply instantly actually involved about media consolidation and monopoly energy (you’re to disregard the U.S. proper wing’s generational and indeniable quest to coddle and shield monopoly energy throughout telecom, power, air journey, banking, and numerous different industries):
“Questioning how Netflix competes with rivals suggests the division is taking a look at whether or not its deliberate Warner deal may entrench its market energy, or result in a monopoly sooner or later. U.S. regulation provides enforcers broad energy to oppose mergers that might result in a monopoly.”
In actuality, the Trump administration has made it extraordinarily clear they’re hoping to scuttle the Netflix deal to help Larry Ellison acquire Warner Brothers, CNN, and HBO. If they will’t kill the deal, they aspire to at the very least leverage the merger approval course of to pressure Netflix executives to additional debase themselves earlier than the Trump administration, which I believe they’ll all be completely satisfied to do.
It’s a part of a longstanding pattern by Trumpism to pretend that they’re engaged in populist antitrust reform, claims traditionally propped up by a long list of useful idiots throughout the partisan spectrum, and parroted by a rising coalition of proper wing propaganda retailers. This bogus populism helps obfuscate what’s actually simply a number of the worst corruption America has ever seen (which is admittedly saying one thing).
The unique (paywalled) Wall Road Journal report (and this aggregated Reuters recap) dutifully assist promote the declare that the DOJ is additionally “investigating” Ellison’s Paramount/Skydance, whose Warner Brothers acquisition bid was repeatedly rejected by the Warner board over worries about dodgy financing and Saudi cash involvement:
“The WSJ reported that the DOJ can be reviewing Paramount’s proposed acquisition bid, which Warner Bros’ board unanimously rejected by labeling it “insufficient” and “not in the very best pursuits” of shareholders.”
The retailers fail to remind you that there’s beneficiant reporting discussing how Larry Ellison and Trump have had extensive meetings discussing who Larry Ellison would fire on Trump’s behalf should he take control of CNN. Additionally they fail to remind you that the best wing “press,” with Trump’s assist, has been engaged in a broad effort to undermine the Netflix merger possibilities utilizing false claims.
After Warner Brothers balked at Larry’s competing bid and a hostile takeover attempt, Larry tried to sue Warner Brothers. With that not going wherever, Larry, MAGA, and the Heritage Basis (of Challenge 2025 fame) have since joined forces to attempt to assault the Netflix merger throughout proper wing media, falsely claiming that “woke” Netflix is making an attempt a “cultural takeover” that have to be stopped for the nice of humanity:
Extra not too long ago that included scripted questions provided by the Heritage Foundation at a Congressional hearing, the place lawmakers like Republican Senator Josh Hawley resorted to bogus trans panic attacks to try and paint Netflix as some sort of vile leftist cabal.
As we hold noting, ideally a useful regulator would block all further media consolidation, since these megadeals are persistently horrible for labor, shoppers, and product high quality (see: Warner Brothers total company historical past since 2000).
That’s clearly not occurring underneath a Trump administration that has lobotomized all key regulators. So ideally, whereas not nice, Netflix buying Warner Brothers is the very best of a bunch of dangerous choices. It’s arguably notably higher than furthering Larry Ellison’s apparent plan to gobble up CBS, TikTok, and CNN, and switch what’s left of America’s already dodgy company media into Hungary-esque state television that lavishes hole reward on our mad fool king.
As a result of we’ve already let media consolidation run amok (because of the Trump administration’s attack on bipartisan media consolidation limits), our shitty company press is incapable of explaining to the general public that the Trump DOJ inquiry into Netflix isn’t being performed in good religion. It’s an ideal circle of greed, regulatory seize, and corruption that can ramp up within the weeks to come back.
Trump DOJ Launches Bunk Investigation Of Netflix Merger As a Favor To Larry Ellison
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