Lina Khan Calls Out Dems’ Capitulation to Billionaires in Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger

Duration: 11:05 2114 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

Lina Khan has publicly criticized the Democratic Party's recent capitulation to billionaire interests regarding the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, arguing that the deal effectively cedes democratic control to wealthy elites. The transcript highlights how state attorneys general, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, initially sought structural remedies like divestitures but ultimately settled for behavioral restrictions after facing intense pressure from unions, industry groups, and threats of leaving California. Khan points out that this settlement allows the merger to proceed with only promises of editorial oversight for news divisions like CBS and CNN, which she deems insufficient because such boards are controlled by the very billionaires who own the companies. She asserts that relying on these concessions is a false victory, as it reinforces a system where open markets for journalism and creative expression are compromised by corporate power. The video expands this critique to illustrate a broader pattern where billionaires consistently achieve their policy goals while regular citizens remain marginalized. Examples provided include billionaire Robert Kraft pressuring venues to deplatform content critical of Palestine, Universal hesitating to distribute an anti-Elon Musk documentary outside North America, and Jeff Bezos dropping a film about Sam Altman following a business deal with OpenAI. The narrator argues that this dynamic is not new but rather the expected outcome in late-stage capitalism, where elites capture political institutions and ignore public sentiment. This trend is further exemplified by local governments approving data center projects despite significant community opposition, demonstrating that elected officials often prioritize corporate interests over the will of their constituents, effectively treating democracy as a facade for wealthy rule. Ultimately, the transcript concludes that symbolic victories through voting or isolated protests are inadequate against a system where money equates to absolute power. The narrator emphasizes that billionaires have developed comprehensive strategies to neutralize opposition by burying online movements in algorithms, infiltrating street protests, co-opting populist politicians, and utilizing their influence over Congress. While acknowledging the bleak reality of a government captured by corporate interests and the lack of genuine representation for ordinary people, the speaker maintains that real change can only come from bottom-up direct action rather than top-down reform. The video ends with a call for organized general strikes and mass mobilization to challenge billionaire wealth directly, suggesting that without targeting their financial power through collective action, democracy will remain a game rigged in favor of the rich.

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You know, I really don't know why we even bother to pretend like we're still a democracy at this point. We might as well make it official and just anoint billionaires as kings and give them crowns and let them rule by decree because that's effectively what's already happening. I say this because last week we all saw how billionaire Robert Craft rallied other billionaire venue owners against McLemore and got them all to agree to deplatform him because he said free Palestine. We also learned that the billionaire owner of Universal is starting to get cold feet about distributing a 4-hour long documentary that's critical of Elon Musk to theaters outside of North America because they're worried about pissing off the bigger billionaire too much. And months before that, Amazon's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos dropped a movie from Amazon MGM Studios about fellow billionaire Sam Alman after Amazon struck a deal with Sam Alman's company, Open AI. And this week, we're learning that the Ellison, the right-wing billionaire [ __ ] who already own Tik Tok, CBS News, and a million other companies, are probably going to get to gobble up Warner Bros. Discovery, too. Variety reports Paramount has reached a deal with 12 state attorneys general that removes a major obstacle to closing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The two sides spent the weekend intense discussions over Paramount's commitments to remain in California and over guarantees for its production levels. The discussions also focused on editorial oversight of CBS News and CNN, a key concern for East Coast Attorneys General. Sources said the settlement does not require Paramount to make any major divevestigages. California Attorney General Rob Bant led the 12-state coalition which sued to block the deal in July despite prior approval from the US Department of Justice. Since then, Bonta has insisted on robust structural remedies which has been taken to mean significant divevestatures. Opponents of the deal were quick to blast Bonta for caving to Paramount's pressure campaign and rightly so because that's exactly what happened. Paramount threatened to leave California and then got fellow Democrats to put pressure on Rob Bant. And they got IATSI and the Director's Guild of America to pressure him as well, while simultaneously getting the Writer Guild of America as well as theater chains like AMC and Regal to acquies. And that's how the Ellison's got lawmakers to give them exactly what they want. Shocker. But Rob Bant is already trying to spin this as a win for Democrats, posting on Twitter, "We've reached a settlement agreement with Paramount that includes court enforcable guard rails to resolve the antitrust issues at the center of our case, protect competition and consumer choice, and provide for the production of significantly more films and a minimum of 1.5 billion in additional investment in domestic film production." And he goes on to tout all the supposed concessions that he thinks he got from the billionaires to make people feel better about the fact that he capitulated to them. And before Rob Bant even released the specifics about this particular deal, Lena Khan chimed in because she wanted to give him and everybody else a reality check, writing on Twitter, "The Paramount Warner Brothers murderer seems facially illegal, and the state ags challenging it is very strong. It's troubling to hear that the states may now settle for behavioral remedies allowing the deal to go through subject to various promises from the firms. Behavioral remedies routinely fail and the stakes here are particularly high given that a strong democracy requires open markets for sound journalism and creative expression. The states were right to step up and I hope they keep fighting to protect this market, its workers and millions of Americans who value a free press and a vibrant film industry. Well, a hope in one hand and should in the other and see which one fills up first because it kind of just seems like this is now a foregone conclusion at this point. In fact, it always kind of felt inevitable because in a latestage capitalist society, billionaires always get what they want. But I mean, to Lena Khan's broader point, she's correct. And this idea that there's going to be more editorial independence of CBS and CNN is complete [ __ ] because the editorial oversight board which is going to ensure that they're autonomous is being set up by the board of the company which is controlled by the Ellison. So it's hopeless. The billionaires win once again to nobody's surprise. And it's not like this is new. They always get what they want because a 2014 Princeton University study concluded that elites more often than not get all of the policies that they want. Whereas regular Americans have zero impact on policy outcomes because we're no longer constituents to politicians. The billionaires are. They're the one and only constituent that politicians care about. Regular people have no representation in government. And billionaires have only gotten more brazen in the last 12 years since that study was conducted because they know that if the peasants ever try to come together to revolt or challenge their tyranny in any meaningful way, they'll just get their media puppets to tell them to be mad at trans people or immigrants instead and that's going to work. So they realize that they don't even have to pretend to give a [ __ ] about what we want because billionaires have us by the balls. They know that it's their country and we're just living in it. The best that we can hope for at this point are symbolic victories. I say this because even though citizens across the country have been effective at driving flock cameras out of their communities, it's not always a win because as 404 media explains, some cities that ditched flock cameras aren't getting rid of ALPRs altogether. They're replacing them with axon cameras instead, which are less conspicuous and harder to vandalize since they're being mounted to street lamps. So, [ __ ] us for thinking that we could actually make a difference in our communities, right? Because a loss for one corporation is a win for another corporation. And as heartwarming as it is to see the overwhelming backlash to data centers across the country, too, local officials have made it clear that they simply do not give a [ __ ] about what people want. In Red Oak, Texas, the entire town showed up to a city council meeting to oppose the construction of a data center. But guess what? Their city council approved it anyway because the people don't get what they want. The same thing actually happened in a rural town in Oregon about 30 minutes northwest of Portland where a city council unanimously approved the data center despite an outcry from citizens. And what's funny about this particular story from Oregon is that there isn't even any plans to build a data center yet. But if a big tech company chooses to do so, city councilors want to make sure that the process is as painless as possible despite protests from angry peasants. Because again, we don't ever get what we want. The billionaires always get what they want because again this is their country. It's not our country anymore. And this is a microcosm of a bigger issue, right? The billionaires have conquered democracy at the national level. Democracy is nothing more than a [ __ ] facade at this point. Our billionaire pedophile president isn't even pretending to give a [ __ ] about regular people. He's just trying to milk the country for all the money that he possibly can until it collapses because crime has essentially been decriminalized for the wealthy. That's what we've come to in this country. Trump is the most corrupt president in American history. And not to mention, he's also a [ __ ] pedophile who literally tried to overthrow the US government. But yet, nobody realistically expects him to go to prison for any of the crimes that he committed because he has money and that means he has power, so he can do what he wants. The same is true for every other billionaire. They become more powerful than state laws and the US Constitution itself. So, it's funny that Rob Bant thinks that whatever agreements he got them to agree to is going to bound them. Like, they're billionaires. They have more power than you at this point. Like, we've reached a point in latestage capitalism where you can essentially buy yourself a purge pass if you're rich enough and get away with whatever crime you can dream of. In fact, the shittier you are, the more of a criminal you are, the more the Republican party is going to tout you as a hero. But let's not pretend like Democrats are heroes either because they're also not receptive to the popular world because they're also captured by corporations and billionaires. They might not be as bad as Republican psychopaths because the bar is in hell, but they're not even pretending to care about what the majority of their own base wants. They largely support uh private health insurance over Medicare for all, which is what we want. They're still progenocide. They've become alarmingly xenophobic over the last couple of years and a lot of them are just becoming outright transphobes too now in direct defiance of the base. So we just we have no [ __ ] say whatsoever. And while I'm hopeful that newly elected DSA Democrats will be more receptive to the public than regular Democrats, there's just not enough of them to fundamentally change the status quo. If anything, their presence will only contribute to the illusion that a latestage capitalist system will allow itself to be reformed in the first place. But things are bleak, so I'll settle for the placebo, too. I'll take that. Right. False hope is better than no hope because I at least want to have some hope. However naive it may be, that some politicians are at least going to try to make things a little bit better for us until the billionaires kill off our entire [ __ ] species from irreversible climate change or something else. But no matter how much I cross my fingers and toes, it's just not going to change the reality that revolution always comes from the bottom up and not the top down. And if you actually want to take power back from the billionaires, it requires direct action. Direct action in the form of organized boycots and more importantly general strikes. See, voting is important. It's a tool, right? Just to mitigate harm in the short term. But in a latestage capitalist system, we have to understand once and for all that money is power. And if we don't directly target the pocketbooks of these billionaire fuckwads through mass mobilization and collective action, they're always going to hold all of the cards because now that democracy has become a commodified venture, a game just for the rich, they're going to beat us at that game nine times out of 10. And as pissed off as we all are, we're not pissed off enough because these billionaires clearly think that they can still steamroll us and get away with it. The angry tweets and YouTube rants that I'm doing might hurt their feelings a little bit, but it's not going to hurt their wallets and that's what matters. Okay. The problem is that they've got us right where they want us. If they see mass mobilization online against them, they can just bury that in the algorithm. If they see mass mobilization against them in the streets, they'll surveil and infiltrate that movement and dismantle it or get the cops to crack skulls on their behalf. If they see populist politicians start to emerge and get power, they'll try to co-opt them. And if that fails, they'll get their puppets in Congress to do their bidding. Like, they truly have all of their [ __ ] bases covered. And this is true in almost every country throughout the world. They've got us checkmated. But no one, and I mean no one, is infallible. Not even billionaires. And once we start to see a real conversation take place about a national general strike again with an actual followthrough this time, that's when they'll know that we actually do mean business. >> Luigi not happy. [singing] >> Luigi, bye-bye. >> Oh [music] yeah, >> Luigi. Bye-bye. Good [music] job, Luigi. Yahoo.