Author: Alton Drew

I graduated from the Florida State University with a Bachelor of Science in economics and political science (1984); a Master of Public Administration (1993); and a Juris Doctor (1999). You can follow me on Twitter @altondrew.

Diversity is a fraud

Posted on by Alton Drew

As a black person I have grown increasingly suspect over the years of calls for diversity. It is not that I have succumbed to another race’s false sense of superiority over mine.  It is because diversity is really nothing but an expression of weakness by blacks in America.  It is a rallying cry for inclusion of those blacks who consider themselves the cream of the crop and deserving to be placed ahead of other blacks due to their education and their networks. Diversity is a willingness to shun the need to generate and contribute real economic value settling instead for creating arguments that have at their base the need to make white people feel guilty. Diversity is a feel good political package sold to black voters who stand as much of a chance of breaking glass ceilings as the Atlanta Falcons have at playing in the Super Bowl in Atlanta next year.

As an expression of weakness, calls for diversity are calls for permission to enter a house you are otherwise unwelcome in.  We’ve heard the arguments. “Inclusion is the right thing to do.” “Dr. King died because he believed we are all equal in character.”  ” It is immoral to exclude people, etc. etc.”  It really boils down to begging to be included, basing arguments on weak moral grounds that can fade away when tough economic times appear and animal spirits rise up to battle for scarce capital and jobs. 

Diversity benefits only those who come from a certain pedigree.  In the real world, diversity doesn’t get most blacks a full time job with benefits. What gets people work in the real world are skillsets that bring value to an employer’s efforts at output and a network that through his new employee an employer can tap into.  This is especially important in an information driven economy where workers are no longer “nodes for manufacturing”, where the emphasis is on an employee’s manufacturing skills, but instead is a “node of information”, where the employee uses technology to gather data that helps his employer make the best resource allocations. 

The flip side to this argument is that blacks may not be in the position to be “information nodes” given centuries of being locked out of certain networks.  My answer is, tough.  After being in North America for 400 years and 153 of those years post slavery, Black Americans have had opportune time to accumulate the educational and work experience to access information, garner the appropriate skills, and build valuable networks. Instead of diversifying ourselves into a system dominated by a racial majority and created for a racial majority, blacks need to offset the negative repercussions of the current system by supplementing the current system with a dose of increased self-reliance.

Earlier I described diversity as a feel good political package designed by a political party dominated by white people and sold by an educated small black elite to the masses of black voters.  It is a weak package that is comprised of slight modifications to existing civil rights and labor laws with no meaningful transfer of capital involved.  It is empty with the only blacks getting paid being the fraternity and sorority boys and girls who have some mid-level office driving cars that they look good in. Diversity has not translated into a political economy that takes us to a higher form of human engagement, one where the basic needs of all are truly provided for. 

Diversity is a fraud.

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Current black elected leaders are in no position to provide a disruptive campaign finance model that helps poor blacks

Posted on by Alton Drew

I am seeing no serious attempt  on the part of blacks to step up our political game.  Oh yes, we may have a Stacey Abrams, Ben Jealous, Andrew Gillum, or Mike Espy run for a governor or U.S. senate seat.  We may even show case a couple “winners” like Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, or Tim Scott, but in the larger scheme, beyond these “one-zee, two-zees”, are blacks posing a meaningful impact in the area of national politics? 

What I am seeing so far post mid-term 2018 is the current national black political leadership moving lockstep with Democrat Party messaging, messaging that does not address economic needs of blacks.  To assess the  needs of blacks, you need look no further than the income disparity and wealth gap between white and black people in America.  According to research by the Pew Research Center, the adjusted income for households headed by blacks was $43,300 versus those households headed by whites came in at $71,300.  Pew also reported that median net worth of white households was 13 times higher ($144,000) than that of blacks ($11,200).

As we saw in the last major recession, not having a wealth cushion can be disastrous for households that lose their income.  Having some wealth that can be monetized can help tide a person over until the storm passes, but for many blacks, there may not be any chances of seeing the eye of the financial storm because the first wall of the hurricane wiped them out. 

In the political theater, not having a wealth cushion also means diminished influence on elected officials, during a campaign and post elections.  Being able to finance targeted and strategic messages or finance a campaign’s operational spending increases the chances of being listened to during the interval between elections, when policy making occurs.  Blacks are disproportionately participate in general elections and forego midterms or even some local elections. But worse, blacks are likely less inclined to keep up with the granular needs of day-to-day governance.   Not donating to campaigns or keeping constant pressure on elected officials only makes overlooking blacks as a constituency easier for elected officials.

Sure there are advocacy groups out there that allegedly speak on behalf of “people of color”, but these groups tend to look out for the concerns of the fringe upper crust of minority groups. the highly-educated, higher-wage types who do not reflect the needs of the vast majority of everyday blacks.

This is the downside of being low-income in a political eco-system that stresses buying the eardrums of candidates, where candidates need money to run campaigns while poor blacks have to decide between electric bills, food, or rent. 

It would be beautiful to construct a campaign finance model that disrupts the status quo of political party leadership and incumbent elected officials.  A disruptive system that keeps black elected officials especially focused on why the masses elected them won’t be created by blacks beholden the party leadership and messaging that does not serve blacks.

  

On philosophy and scared academics

Posted on by Alton Drew

Yesterday I looked up the qualifications of “philosopher” and came across this definition that was offered on Quora:

“If you want, seek or need “qualifications”, you’ll never be a real philosopher.  You can be a philosophy student, a philosophy professor or something in that vein (or vain — or even “vane” if you can grasp my abstract meaning).

Philosophers were brilliant thinkers who could see beyond standard thinking and lead man to better understand life and the human experience.  There have only been a few of them.  Philosophy professors and experts are well versed in other people’s thinking — amazingly so in some instances.  There are and have been thousands of them — brilliant in their own way, but incapable of formulating vision on their own.  They are far too stuck in ideas initiated by other people to recognize the function of Consciousness/Reality beyond their deduced “truths”.

Equate these two types (real philosopher vs. philosophy student) to composers vs. performers.  There are many wonderful pianists who can play Chopin with perfection and expression.  But there was only one Chopin.  Gobs of academicians argue Kant’s ideas or assign meaning to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.  But the originators were guys who could see things beyond standard thinking of their time. 

Generations of philosophy students up until our time only bandy about preset ideas, conceptualizations others initiated.

In any case, if you are fascinated with ideas, indulge in philosophy and want to explore the vast array of -isms and -ologies, set your sights on being a philosophy professor, retreating from the real world and impressing people with your command of minutia concerning established (but invalid and non-functional) ideas.

If you are capable of seeing Reality as the flowing, fully integrated Oneness that it is, responding in the scope of each individual’s life to his/her deep inner Self — and if you are capable of discerning the function of the subconscious in a depth beyond established theory — and if you have the capability of expressing your vision in understandable terms — and if you have the fortitude to proceed in life even though most others don’t grasp your perspectives — and if you have added capacities or external wealth to not have to depend on income derived from your valuable insights…

Then you can be a real philosopher.  With one exception I know of, real philosophers went extinct with Wittgenstein a century ago.  But in a very troubled time, there is surely an opening for such a free-thinking individual…” — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

My takeaway from Mr Nehrer’s definition is that a free thinking individual should be just that; free to use what she observes while in first principals mode and draw her own conclusions on the “why” of the world.  She frees herself of the general consensus which brings her closer to freedom.

A philosopher won’t make it her first point to regurgitate someone else’s principles, observations, or conclusions although she may readily admit the moments when she does share another person’s position on an issue.  But a philosopher should always be ready challenge her and anyone else’s conclusions by questioning them.  She should always be ready to ask, “What am I seeing?” and “What does it mean” according to her own rules.

I don’t believe I should be ready to join the first “academy” that raises its head.  Nor m I afraid that avoiding consensus means inviting chaos and disorder.  I am not afraid of viewing order as temporary but admit its pursuit by humans is a constant.  Man is so ready to create order at the expense of enslaving what is natural that he creates the very prison his alleged pursuit of freedom wants to avoid.  Where that moment of harmony and collegiality arises, yes, enjoy it, for it is the exception, not the rule. 

This type of freedom scares the academy.  It is no wonder it is becoming less influential. 

Does an “open internet” promote a representative democracy? No, because democracy is not its job

Posted on by Alton Drew

Techopedia defines the open internet as “a fundamental network (net) neutrality concept in which information across the World Wide Web (WWW) is equally free and available without variables that depend on the financial motives of Internet Service Providers (ISP).”

The political debate over net neutrality over the last three years has focused on the ability of ISPs such as Comcast and AT&T to discriminate against third-party content provider traffic in favor of ISP content, to the extent that ISPs are expected to use their gateway status to slow down traffic from certain websites or outright block subscriber access to certain websites.

The internet as a platform plays an important role in American commerce as American consumers are expected to spend an estimated $7.8 billion on Cyber Monday. Net neutrality violations could mean lost advertisement revenues for content providers who are unable to get their products and advertisements in front of consumer eyeballs.  Being cut out of $7.8 billion of revenues during the holiday season could pose an existential threat for small businesses depending on those holiday sales to break even or stay in the black.

Besides the issue of staying in the black is the issue of whether an open internet promotes the components of American political culture; whether an open internet or lack thereof poses an existential threat to the American republic.  I think as currently construed, an open internet does not pose an existential threat to the American republic. On the contrary, when it comes to navigating the political-economic environment of the United States, knowledge on how well American representative democracy is working is best ascertained by reviewing hard political-economic data published by public agencies or academic or other research institutions.

The open internet has inundated the political economy with junk. It has Americans sacrificing value of specialized information for volumes of narcissistic junk.

First, why has the internet not eroded the American republic?  Contrary to the hoopla surrounding assertions that the Russian government sponsored psychological warfare on the American electorate during the November 2016 elections, the populace participated in the selection of the electors that voted for the president of the United States. More votes were cast for president in 2016 (135,719,984) than were cast in 2012 (128,768,094).

In addition, what I refer to as “insurgent” parties, i.e., the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, etc., did better in 2016 than they did in 2012.  The Gary Johnson-led Libertarian Party ticket picked up approximately 4.5 million votes in 2016 compared to 1.3 million votes in 2012.  The Jill Stein-led Green Party almost tripled its 2012 showing during the 2016 campaign, with approximately 1.5 million votes cast for the Green Party in 2016 versus approximately 470,000 votes in 2012.

Rather than eroding representative democracy, an argument could be made that the internet provided less expensive outlets for insurgent parties to get their messages out to the voting public.  I saw more of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein on YouTube than I did mainstream press.

America’s founding aristocracy chose a republic as the best vehicle for promoting the three major components of American political culture: liberty, equality, and democracy.  Does the open internet help promote these characteristics of American political culture? I would argue only if the government expressly decides to use the open internet itself in order to accomplish these goals or requires by charter that every private entity operating on the internet do so.

Liberty is freedom from government control where Americans expect a great degree of economic and personal freedom without the government unreasonably regulating personal and commercial behavior.  The open internet itself does not have this responsibility. In the end it is just a communications platform.  Problems would arise if government were to use the internet for surveillance purposes, i.e., use deep packet reading to ascertain what messages you are sending over the internet or, under the guise of “smart city” technology, surveil minority neighborhoods to regulate citizen movement.

Nor does the internet have the responsibility of creating political equality. Political equality refers to the right to participate in politics equally based on the principle of “one person, one vote.”  Notwithstanding the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 general elections, the “one person, one vote” characteristic of American political culture is, again, the responsibility of national and state governments.  Online voting as a concept is in its infant stage.  And while the Russians allegedly interfered by waging a messaging campaign via social media, there were other outlets, both online and offline, where Americans could get their information and strengthen their “one vote” with knowledge.

Lastly, there is democracy itself, the right to cast that one vote for the candidate of your choice.  How does the unimpeded flow of information across 100,000 interconnected global computer networks impact your ability to choose a leader? The above discussion summarizes the answer: it doesn’t.  Yes, one could go to the internet and look up information on a candidate, but there are millions of Americans with no access to broadband that function normally in society; that buy groceries, go to work, and yes, vote, without having to access the information floating around the internet that is deposited by various sources.  Besides traditional media, they probably access information from the original sources i.e. city council meetings; public access television, government agency public information offices, and make just as accurate a political decision as the woman surfing the internet in her bunny sandals and pajamas.

Yes, the internet has afforded millions of people to express themselves in cyberspace via blogs, websites, podcasts, and online videos, but the open internet neither promotes or hinders democracy.  Only humans can and there are other sources of information through which humans can accumulate knowledge on liberty, equality, and democracy.  Democracy is the responsibility of government and its citizens.  The open internet is neither savior, devil, or panacea….

There is nothing progressive about opposing zero-rated broadband service

Posted on by Alton Drew

When liberal organizations attacked zero-rated broadband access services offered by internet service providers, they may have lost some of their progressive bona fides.  Fortunately for them the 2016 general elections and the 2018 midterm elections did not make net neutrality in particular or broadband access in general a battleground issue.

Here in Georgia, broadband got nary a mention during the gubernatorial debates with both candidates, former Georgia state senator Stacey Abrams and Governor-elect Brian Kemp giving the nod to increasing consumer access to broadband services, especially for citizens living in rural areas.

I sense that Mr Kemp would have no problem with mobile wireless providers targeting rural consumers with their zero-rating plans.  Under zero rating, a wireless provider may choose not to apply data usage caps where a subscriber is accessing particular content, whether the content is provided by a third-party of by the wireless carrier itself.  For example, Verizon may decide not to reduce the amount of data available to me by the amount of time I choose to view a video on Facebook or on one of Verizon’s media properties.  In other words, my data cap would not take a hit.

I can see two primary benefits from such a non-pricing plan. First, for new subscribers being introduced to mobile web service, it provides the consumer with incentive to become familiar with more sources of content and services.  Second, the value of the carrier’s network increases as demand for its content and services increase.  While overall costs of operating the network may go up as more subscribers establish accounts, cost per subscriber should fall providing incentive for keep the price each subscriber pays flat.

Especially given the second benefit, the incentive to keep subscriber rates flat, I would think that progressives would promote zero rate pricing for broadband.  Progressives tend to position themselves as protectors of the middle class and if there is an issue that progressives should empathize with when it comes to the middle class are the increases in consumer prices the middle class encounters given wages that have been flat for decades.  One would also think that as the U.S. economy and educational system requires workers, producers, and students to have access to data via the internet that progressives would encourage consumers to jump on the opportunity to get on the internet at a lower cost.  Instead opponents of zero rating have been emphasizing the alleged negative impact zero rating has on competition between content providers.

For example, the Electronic Freedom Frontier, an internet freedom advocacy group, is concerned that zero rating will divert consumer eyeballs to large content providers such as Facebook that can afford to subsidize a broadband access provider’s lost revenue in exchange for more traffic being sent to the large content provider.  That the consumer may be incentivized to probe content or spend more time on broadband networks is of very little concern to EFF.  The potential threat to market entry by smaller or newer players appears to be more of their concern.

Given this stance by EFF, it is no wonder that the zero rating narrative, while bantered about inside the Washington, DC beltway, has no traction with the general public.  Politically it is a non-starter with a general public made up of consumers that are more concerned with getting bang for their dollars versus whether a content provider has the innovative or content creative capabilities to enter the content market.

For progressives, zero rating is another example of how the Left has strayed away from matters that mean the most to most Americans.

 

The “economy” is doing better but I am seeing more homeless in Atlanta

Posted on by Alton Drew

I am seeing more homeless people in my West End Atlanta neighborhood. I have seen at least one sleeping in his vehicle. Others make use of the parks to sleep at night.  What I see on the ground does not coincide with the claims made in Washington of a booming economy.

WABE, citing data collected from the city of Atlanta, reported that the homeless population numbers around 3,000 people and is allegedly on a decline.  And last year, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Atlanta ranks among America’s neediest cities based on 21 metrics including child poverty and the number of uninsured. Homelessness is the result of a number of factors including the lack of affordable housing, poverty, discrimination, and shifts in the economy. Can city policies adequately impact these factors?

Take the factor of affordable housing. Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has made affordable housing one of her top public policies, but it appears to me that such an approach falls out of line with one important goal of a city: to generate tax revenue necessary for providing the amenities that keep citizens interested in living in Atlanta.  Land owners want to see property values rise and see an increase in the revenues that their properties generate.

Also, as city leaders continue their efforts to make Atlanta a job center, they have to keep in mind that as part of the efficiencies offered by a city is the location of housing close to job centers.  Housing located close to job centers may also end up being some of the most costliest housing.

I ride into Buckhead every day from southwest Atlanta. I have blogged before about how the MARTA train feels more like those conveyor belts loaded with coal that go into a furnace to fuel a production facility.  In this case the human coal are the lower and middle income individuals heading into Buckhead to work a job that, ironically, may be on the chopping block in a few years due to artificial intelligence.  If these people can’t afford to live close to an employment center where they can walk to work, the pressures of living will really increase when they have to find alternative employment.

But even with current employment, there may not be enough affordable housing available because landlords will be under pressure to meet rising property taxes resulting from the increased values of their properties, at least in the short run. This rise in value and ensuing property taxes will result from increased demand for housing that Atlanta expects to face over the next ten years.

Let’s not forget the upward pressure expected on interest rates over the next two years.  Property owners will have to increase rents in order to cover higher mortgage rates.  For the city of Atlanta it means higher bond servicing costs as the city continues to raise money through bond issues for its development and operational needs.

Affordable housing, because of the above pressures, won’t increase in supply.  Only an economic downturn may bring about cheaper rentals but even that will be short lived because a downturn in the economy means a slowdown in hiring and the specter of non-affordability due to increased lost income.

Politics wise, it is time for elected officials, particularly Democrats, to eliminate the affordable housing mantra from their campaign slogans.  They won’t be able to achieve it at any meaningful scale.

 

Atlanta should avoid the net neutrality debate. It’s not good for business

Posted on by Alton Drew

Internet Innovation Alliance co-founder Bruce Mehlman posted an article yesterday discussing the positive impact relaxed regulatory requirements can have on investment in and deployment of broadband networks. According to Mr. Mehlman, investment in broadband rose by $1.5 billion to $76.3 billion.  He contrasts this to the $3.2 billion decline in investment between 2015 and 2016.

What made the difference? According to Mr. Mehlman it was the decision last year by the Federal Communications Commission to repeal their 2015 open internet order, a decision that put into regulatory code a number of net neutrality principles.  The 2015 order treated broadband access providers as telephone companies by applying consumer and telephone network management rules that were based on communications law from the 1930s.  That approach, according to Mr. Mehlman, just can’t fly in the 21st century.

Unfortunately, Washington has been embroiled in a debate over how net neutrality principles should be applied.  There is a consensus among opponents to and proponents of net neutrality principles that consumers should be able to access web content of their choice; that content providers should not have their traffic speeds throttled by broadband access providers; and that broadband access providers should be transparent about the terms and conditions of their services.  Whether a rule by a regulatory agency is the best approach to ensuring these policy goals is an issue.

Getting to yes on net neutrality may be best brought about by an action of Congress.  Defining net neutrality in the law and laying out the components of its meaning will give content providers and broadband access providers definitive guideposts that help settle any conflicts in the future.  Without a congressional action, the industry and consumers run the risk of a back and forth regulatory battle driven by changes in political power, particularly when a new presidential administration takes over and a new chairman is appointed.  That type of uncertainty every four years is not good for consumers or business.

As more people and businesses move to Atlanta, regulatory certainty becomes an asset for the person who telecommutes; for the financial technology company that needs to maintain connection to its app subscribers; to the student who relies on distance learning to complete assignments.

Treating a broadband provider facing competition from three or four more broadband providers as if they were a monopoly local telephone company in 1934 won’t contribute to Atlanta’s continued growth.

I don’t see Stacey Abrams challenging Kemp in 2022

Posted on by Alton Drew

Sitting here watching the movie Moneyball for the first time.  What struck me was the approach to putting together a winning team, an approach based on statistics and the idea of buying hits, runs, and on-base.  I think that is an approach Georgia’s Democrats have to take in 2022 when they make another attempt at taking Georgia’s governorship.  They will need a candidate that is not afraid to think outside of the box, and thinking outside of the box means finding a candidate not afraid to go after voters that live outside of metro Atlanta.

It won’t be Stacey Abrams.

Stacey Abrams had the persona of that co-worker you are glad to see on a Monday morning.  She had the voice and smile that would tell a co-worker, “We can do this. It’s just Monday. We got this. The week will be fine.”  This positive attitude came across when she attempted to sell Georgia voters on the idea of expanding Medicaid to a larger population of Georgia’s residents while employing over 50,000 more residents necessary for delivering expanded services.

What got me for months were the optics.  I quite frankly did not care for the over-educated, “people of color” urbanites that made up a significant portion of her support.  This group, and their cadre of west coast financial donors never struck me as knowing much of anything about Atlanta outside of I-485, thus knew nothing much about Georgia, especially the state’s rural base.  With this bunch making up her entourage, I could never see Ms. Abrams getting the full trust of rural residents.

The flip side to my argument is that Ms. Abrams got 1,923,685 votes, just over 48% of the total vote.  This is indicative that a significant portion of Georgia’s voting population bought into Ms. Abrams’ messaging.  Ms. Abrams could bank this new found political capital via her newly formed political action committee, Fair Fight Georgia.  According to The San Francisco Bay View, Fair Fight Georgia will have as its aim to pursue accountability in Georgia’s elections along with insuring integrity in maintaining Georgia’s electoral rolls.

But what to do with 1,923,685 votes worth of political capital?  I expect Ms. Abrams to remain in Georgia and the nation’s public eye and challenge U.S. Senator David Perdue for his senate seat in 2020.  She has already shown herself a formidable competitor in a statewide race.  Challenging Mr. Perdue seems the next logical step, especially on her way to pursuing what I believe could be her ultimate goal, the United States presidency.

 

City of Atlanta’s response to Brian Kemp’s victory: silence

Posted on by Alton Drew

Today, Stacey Abrams acknowledged that a court-facilitated path to the governor’s office in Georgia is not there. Although not a traditional concession that the race is over, her Republican challenger, Brian Kemp, can now proceed to taking over the governorship without the distraction of court challenges.

What does this mean for the city of Atlanta in the short term? Besides having a ground level view to a smooth and peaceful transition of power intended by the designers of American democracy, I believe not much. The city’s residents are preparing for the holiday season, with Thanksgiving next week and Christmas coming in the next five.

Over the next two years I suspect that residents will take note of predicted changes in the economy, specifically increasing bank rates, inflation, and increasing bond yields on Treasury notes.  As the population continues to increase and demand for housing along with it, Atlanta’s lower income class will be the first to feel the financial pressure as homes become less affordable, businesses raise prices, and the gains in labor start to fade.

Although local elected officials will bear the brunt of increasing criticism for the state of the city’s economic affairs, Mr. Kemp, in order to ward off a successful election challenge in 2022, will have to come up with an economic management plan that at least prevents Atlanta from spawning the next challenger.

As for Atlanta city government’s relationship with the Governor and the Georgia General Assembly, I have yet to see whether one exists.  If today is any indication, Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Bottoms, had not, at the time of this writing, issued a press release congratulating the governor-elect.

It also does not help that Mrs. Bottoms has aligned herself with the “sanctuary city” movement where local city officials and civic groups have challenged federal immigration laws requiring cooperation with federal agencies in the detention of undocumented foreigners residing in the United States.

Having not spent time herself as a member of the Georgia Assembly, nor, based on her bio, no time in political or non-political positions requiring engagement with the governor’s office or the general assembly, Mrs. Bottoms seems to be falling further behind on the legislative and executive front as a result of not being in a position to foster these relationships.

That said, it is still early in the political game heading into the 2019 legislative session. There may be time to build those relationships.

 

Don’t expect a Trump-Democratic love fest over the AT&T-Time Warner merger

Posted on by Alton Drew

Last July, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an appeal of a U.S. District Court-District of the District of Columbia finding that AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner Media would not hurt competition. The Justice Department, according to The Hill, believes the acquisition would harm competition where AT&T might not provide access to its newly acquired content by other competing content providers or video delivery networks.

Democrats today hinted that once they take-over the U.S. House, they would investigate the Trump administration’s opposition to the merger. Since the campaign for the presidency in 2016, Mr. Trump has verbalized his concern that a merger between the telecommunications giant and the media giant would be a bad thing because of the size of the new entity. In addition, Mr. Trump has expressed no love for CNN, the cable news network that would be one of the crown jewels on AT&T’s new portfolio.

As if any one needed a reminder of the no love lost between the Trump administration and the Atlanta-based news organization, one needed look no further than the spat between CNN’s Jim Acosta and President Trump during a press conference last week. Mr. Trump had no problem suspending Mr. Acosta’s access to the White House.

Congressional Democrats have attacked the merger from the net neutrality angle. Democrats such as Senator Ed Markey have come out against the merger in part due to antitrust and consumer protection reasons. According to Senator Markey, telecommunications policy should ensure that, ” … those with the best ideas, not simply the best access, can share their content with the world.”

But given that net neutrality was not at the top of voters’ holiday shopping list last week, I don’t expect Democrats to approach the Trump administration with anything that looks like a temporary truce. According to analysisanalysis by Gizmodo, a sweep of 1,180 campaign websites saw very few office seekers trumpeting the call for a free and open internet. Real household issues, such as healthcare and the economy, were on the top of family priorities.

I’ve read analysis where it is expected that outgoing Republicans licking their wounds from their 2018 defeat will vote to approve the resolution that passed last May in the U.S. Senate to repeal the Federal Communications Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom order. This order, passed in 2017 by the Commission, repealed a 2015 Commission order that implemented net neutrality rules. The argument is that outgoing GOP congressmen who probably leaned toward the open internet philosophy would want to appease their former constituents by supporting net neutrality rules. I don’t see that happening.

I expect that outgoing Republicans will pay attention to whatever housekeeping matters are on the agenda, including tomorrow’s testimony by Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell before the House financial services committee. Besides, why would a GOP former congressman want to relieve themselves of their conservative bona fides so early after an election. You just don’t relieve yourself so quickly of political capital that you will need for any future political endeavors.