The Problem With #BossBabe Leftism
3rd October 2025
What should the goal of economic policy be? Ideally, a political party would have a clear answer to that question, one it could convey to voters and translate into specific proposals. Yet the Democrats currently lack any sort of unified economic vision. In its absence, the intellectual wings of the various factions that make up the party have been left to battle with one another in the hopes that their competing visions will set the party’s economic agenda for the next election cycle.
One of the factions that is best situated to fill the current policy void, at least partially, is the New Antitrust Movement, which won converts and gained influence during the Biden presidency.1 Over the last 15 years, this movement has gradually built out an impressive political apparatus, including foundation-funded political organizations like the Open Markets Institute, American Economic Liberties Project, and More Perfect Union, media footholds at places like The American Prospect, a stable of elected officials like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and a set of semi-celebrity bureaucrats including Jonathan Kanter, Tim Wu, and Lina Khan.
For most modern political factions, it is hard to pinpoint their exact origins. They seem to emerge from a variety of disparate sources and cultural shifts that can only be described impressionistically. But this is not so for the New Antitrust Movement. Unlike other Democratic factions, it has an identifiable individual founder: Barry Lynn. It also has what is essentially a founding document: Lynn’s 2009 book Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction.
Sixteen long years later, Cornered’s diagnosis of what ails the American economy remains quite influential even though many of the illustrative industries Lynn diagnosed as unacceptably concentrated have since been disrupted by new entrants. More importantly, despite its big flaws, the idea that the proliferation and protection of small business owners is itself an important goal that supersedes more conventional goals like efficiency, growth, and labor protection has taken hold of a large portion of the policy-focused left, with no retreat on the horizon.