Returning to the Thunderdome

The FTC takes on Meta, proxy voting rightfully fails in the House, and unmaking the unConstitutional state.

Well hello there! It’s been a minute.

I’ve been on a bit of a writing and commentary reprieve. I spent 2023 and part of 2024 back in the U.S. Senate, helping my old boss Sen. Mike Lee run the Senate Steering Committee, the caucus of conservative senators.

I re-joined CPI in 2024, then took a few months off to welcome another baby boy to the family. (Four weeks after my baby was born I gave a speech at the fourth annual National Conservatism Conference. I opened my remarks by thanking my mom and my husband for helping with the newborn so I could have time to write — and New York Magazine promptly wrote an entire article entitled “The Nursemaids of National Conservatism.” Welcome back to the Thunderdome, as they say.)

Anyway, all that to say, my output is not as high as it once was — adding another kid to the mix is high on the cuteness scale and decidedly lower when it comes to free time. But I’m delighted to once again be noodling on some of my favorite topics.

Today I’m sharing my recent essay in The Federalist, previewing the FTC’s trial against Meta (formerly Facebook) which kicked off on Monday. I spoke about this topic with Steven Bannon on War Room — the full interview is here, and clipped here and here.

I also have a new essay up today in First Things discussing Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s recent attempt to push proxy voting in the House for new moms. While I agree Congress can, and should, be more welcoming to young families, proxy voting is not the way. More below.

Finally, I was happy to be part of my friend Ned Ryun’s recent documentary, American Leviathan, which is a timely look at the tyranny of the administrative state, underscoring the necessity of DOGE and the urgency of its work. The full documentary is available here.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Rachel

Despite PR Pivot, Meta Is Still A Monopoly And A Threat To A Free Society

Even Big Tech’s toughest conservative critics must admit Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have had a good few months.

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s reelection last November, the $1 trillion company finally scrapped its worst woke initiatives, from Facebook’s infamous “fact-checking” regime to its internal DEI programming. Its sites are apparently no longer throttling political content. And Zuckerberg has even rebranded himself — going “all-in on a MAGA-dominated Washington,” buying a $23 million home two miles from the White House, and frequently rubbing shoulders with the president and his senior advisers.

With Meta’s very survival on the line in a landmark antitrust trial set to start next week, pundits from Washington to Wall Street to Silicon Valley are all wondering how much of an effect Zuckerberg’s political pivot will have on the case.

Let me suggest an answer: none.

Whether Meta’s MAGA turn this year is sincere or cynical is irrelevant. The fact is, Meta is an illegal monopoly. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 with anti-competitive intent, as Zuckerberg and his team’s own emails prove with smoking-gun definitiveness. The Federal Trade Commission has Zuckerberg and his firm dead to rights. They should proceed with the trial, win, and break up Meta, period.

Read the rest of the essay here.

One Cheer for Anna Paulina Luna’s Proxy Voting Gambit

Congressional proxy voting is a terrible idea. It is patently unconstitutional. It is as slippery a slope toward corruption and abuse of power as can be imagined. And even if a proxy scheme worked as honestly as promised, it would still make Congress less representative and Washington’s special interests more entrenched. So House Republicans were absolutely right earlier this month to oppose Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s (R-FL) proposal to allow members with infant children to vote by proxy.

And yet, I am grateful to Luna for introducing it. Because the debate she started has already made the U.S. House of Representatives better. In time, it could yield even richer, more humanizing reforms both within Congress and throughout America’s toxic political culture.

Congress, after all, is not a machine. Nor is it a stage for political performance art. The Constitution is very clear that the Framers intended for Congress to be—and to act as—a community.

Article I insists on this point—to be together, in person, “in Congress, assembled,” to conduct the nation’s business. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention designed Congress to find and forge consensus on behalf of the sprawling, squabbling new American republic. They knew firsthand that the forming of a physical, human community was how a diverse nation with so many competing interests could nonetheless come together. Not for nothing did the Constitutional Convention have a quorum rule, too.

Read the rest of the essay here.