2020 Dems to debate ‘monopoly power’

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) proposal to break up the country’s largest tech companies has set the tone for the Democrats vying for their party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

The progressive senator staked her claim as a trustbuster with an ambitious plan to break up companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon. She argued that Big Tech’s market power has stifled competition and even democracy.

“As these companies have grown larger and more powerful, they have used their resources and control over the way we use the Internet to squash small businesses and innovation, and substitute their own financial interests for the broader interests of the American people,” Warren wrote in a blog post last week, unveiling her plan.

Warren’s plan is the most aggressive proposal yet from any candidate in a party that has increasingly pushed a tougher stance on Silicon Valley. Going after tech companies has quickly become a go-to issue for Democrats, whether they’re centrists or firebrand progressives.

Warren’s proposals against big tech companies are the latest reminder that the party has moved on from the Obama-era days when it actively courted the tech industry and celebrated its ties with entrepreneurs and innovators.

“You go down the list [of candidates] and most of them have staked something out on this issue,” said Stacy Mitchell, the co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit that advocates for a tougher crackdown on Amazon and other internet platforms.

A handful of other candidates declined to echo Warren’s proposal when asked about it over the weekend. But Democrats have almost universally taken up the idea that Big Tech needs to be dealt with either through regulations on the collection and sale of personal data or by antitrust enforcement.