The last time party Republicans chose to throw the election to the Democrats over fear of a dangerous Republican president was a fellow named T.R. He went his own way, he didn't care much for the establishment and he battled the political concentrations of power. Now Trump, breaking with the party's usual soporific blind support for anything that left-wing corporations do, is going rogue.
Donald Trump is trying to turn media consolidation into a campaign issue.
"As an example of the power structure I'm fighting, AT&T is buying Time Warner and thus CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few," Trump said during a speech on Saturday.
The CNN awkwardness on the story is hilarious.
(Time Warner is the parent company of CNN.)
You don't say.
Trump also said that if he is elected, his administration would look at breaking up the 2011 merger of Comcast and NBCUniversal.
The comments shocked some regulatory experts. Republicans are usually supportive of mergers and acquisitions while Democrats are generally more skeptical.
But Trump's pledge to block the possible AT&T-Time Warner (TWX) transaction breaks with precedent and places him far to the left of President Obama, whose administration approved the Comcast (CCV) deal with numerous conditions.
Unlike Obama, Trump isn't signing on to a dirty deal which gives left-wing interests a piece of the pie.
But if Trump really wants to tackle a runaway beast of a left-wing corporation fighting a determined culture war for the left... he ought to look at Disney.
Meanwhile CNN does the ritual media fact-checking.
First he blasted the potential AT&T-Time Warner deal, which was met with applause by his supporters in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Then he complained about Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon and the owner of the Washington Post.
Trump wrongly said that Amazon "through its ownership controls the Washington Post."
In fact, Bezos owns the Post separately from his role at Amazon, though some partnerships between the two entities have been forged.
Some partnerships indeed. But don't worry. It's all separate. There's a firewall.
The candidate also said Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal "concentrates far too much power in one massive entity that is trying to tell the voters what to think and what to do."
To applause, Trump said, "Deals like this destroy democracy."
They do indeed. It might be time to take on the culture trusts and save democracy.