The End and Beginning of the Lina Khan Era

On Tuesday , a U.S. district court judge in Oregon , after a three-week trial, ruled for the FTC that the proposed $25 billion merger between Kroger and Albertsons should be blocked.

Less than an hour later , President-elect Donald Trump announced his intent to depose FTC chair Lina Khan in favor of a fairly bog-standard Republican , former Mitch McConnell chief counsel and current FTC commissioner Andrew Ferguson .

The new approach will endure despite the federal changeover, precisely because the one segment of the government thought to be impregnably conservative and pro-business—the judiciary—has become quite accepting of neo-Brandeisian arguments.

Lina Khan and Lina Kanter have started to turn around the most implacable force in American life: the judiciary.

But Trump ’s enforcers didn’t alter the Merger Guidelines in his first term, and I’ve been told that Slater , who advised Vice President-elect JD Vance , represents at least some continuity with Khan-Kanter way of thinking.

A judge in King County , Washington , blocked the Kroger-Albertsons merger on the same day that the FTC won its case.

These are precedent-setting cases that have brought antitrust enforcement back to life.

In future cases, they will be cited, and used again, validating the theories of neo-Brandeisians .