You know what? I’ll say it. Maybe I am tired of all these mainstream political figures. The Kamala Harrises, the Donald Trumps, the Gavin Newsoms, the Joe Manchins, the Mike Johnsons and the Rick Scotts.
Whether it’s the newest uncoverings of political figures in sex scandals, or Donald Trump wrapped up in a multimillion-dollar fraud suit just weeks before Election Day, these stories serve as nothing but disturbing and alarming.
So, why don’t we flip the script? Allow me to introduce you to someone unproblematic, hard-working and a genuine actor for the interests of American people — Lina Khan, Chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission.
Her line of work started as early as being a student at Yale Law School. There, she published the influential essay “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” in which she analyzed the mega-conglomerate Amazon and its dominating presence over the world with its monopolistic position — while having inadequate modern legislation to properly regulate them for consumers.
Within no time, she became an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School, where she continued to teach and write on antitrust legislation, infrastructure industries and monopolies.
To fully realize her potential, in June 2021, she was appointed by President Joe Biden as the youngest-ever FTC chair.
For those unfamiliar, the FTC’s mission as a government agency is to protect consumers from deceptive companies and practices. Since Khan’s tenure, the FTC has filed an unprecedented amount of lawsuits against predatory companies.
Have you ever dropped your iPhone and cracked your screen? In a righteous world, we could repair that screen however we want, whether through our own repair attempts or a third-party repair shop. We shouldn’t have to use Apple’s repair shop, where they will most likely charge more.
Before Khan, there was no obligation for companies to make their products easily repairable. They could make all of their screws proprietary, or lock hardware behind software checks. Under Khan, our right to repair restrictions have been lifted.
That’s just one of the first things she did once she became chairwoman in July 2021. Since then, Khan has infused all of her beliefs, learnings and teachings into her work, with antitrust being at the forefront of those policies.
She’s led attempts — both successfully and unsuccessfully — to block company mergers that the FTC argues would only harm us consumers. These go from niche companies like Microsoft, to technology creators like Nvidia, to the food we eat from Kroger.
She’s led lawsuits against price gouging by insulin and inhaler companies, proposals against junk fees from airlines and credit cards and the ban against insidious non-compete contracts.
So, what is the punchline of this story? Naturally, it’s to ask how any of this may have to do with us.
Simply put, Khan is a hero. This is assuming, of course, that my dear reader isn’t a nepo-baby from the graces of a mega-conglomerate benefiting off of charging exorbitant prices to diabetic Americans.
If there’s anything that can prove her heroism, it’s the simple fact that Wall Street does not like her — and if famous investors like Vinod Khosla, founders like Reid Hoffman or mega-donors like Barry Diller disagree with her, you know that someone is doing good work.
For Khan to continue her tenure in ensuring protections for daily consumers and workers, it’s pivotal for them to stand behind her — and this means not only supporting the right presidential candidate who would keep her as chairwoman, but bolstering her enough that those aforementioned donors don’t have as powerful a say.
With these magnates are making billions of dollars off of consumers, perhaps it’s time to stand behind our one and only Lina Khan.
