Lina Khan, Zohran Mamdani Team Up Against Small Business

There is something Capraesque about progressive antitrust writing. Recently in The New York Times, Lina Khan waxed rhapsodic about Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani as he stops by halal carts and pops into bodegas to ask small business owners about their problems. Khan’s writing – like that of former progressive FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya – is poetic in evoking the plights and virtues of the small dealer. Reading Khan, one imagines the small grocer urging you to bite into one of his crisp apples while his granddaughter sweeps the floor, or the guy in the food truck bragging about his chicken empanadas. You get the sense that every time their doors open and the little bell rings, an angel gets its wings.