Anglospherics

[A]t the core of Vanceonomics is a preferential option for government intervention. Vance, for example, has spoken in favor of raising the federal minimum wage and even supported to that effect as a senator, despite the well-documented negative economic that such raises have on the job prospects of younger, poorer, and less-educated Americans.

This is not the only area in which Vance’s economic position aligns with the preferences of American progressives. Vance’s support for expansive antitrust laws that go far beyond the consumer welfare standard, which assesses the impact of proposed mergers and conduct on consumers, places him in the same camp as Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Federal Trade Commissioner Lina Khan, the latter of whom Vance once as “doing a pretty good job.”

Past and present advocates of expansive applications of antitrust insist that such measures ensure that large corporations don’t destroy market competition by leveraging their greater resources to establish monopolies by crushing medium- and small-sized businesses that might become potential rivals. In the past, Vance’s opposition to what Justice William O. Douglas once “The Curse of Bigness” was particularly directed against big tech companies. In February 2024, for example, Vance for the breakup of Google.

Vance’s antitrust views directly clash with long-standing critiques of expansive antitrust advanced by scholars such as, and. They pointed out that U.S. antitrust laws have been characterized by vaguely worded statutes and complex case law that introduce excessive uncertainty into the economy by making standard business practices, such as exclusive contracting, potentially unlawful. The subsequent shift towards the consumer welfare standard in court decisions from the late-1970s onwards simplified matters by focusing attention upon what really matters: the principle of consumer sovereignty, thereby limiting the type of government interventions that actually competition in the name, perversely enough, of preventing monopolies.

By contrast, Vance’s antitrust views downplay the extent to which more expansive understandings of such laws have been weaponized by companies to undermine existing competitors, but also by government officials seeking to punish businesses that refuse to cooperate with whoever is in the White House. Presidents ranging from to have gone down that path.

There is reason to be concerned that Vance might bring that outlook to the conduct of economic policy more generally. The vice-president has, after all, associated himself with those conservatives who have adopted the New Right’s friend-enemies logic to legitimize using the state to punish one’s political opponents. Penalizing people for their political views is hardly the purpose of, for instance, tax policy in any society that takes the rule of law seriously. Yet there have been occasions when Vance has expressed a desire to raise taxes on specific groups because of what he [sees] as their willingness to side with a “global oligarchy” instead of the United States.

Since Good’s shooting, facts have incrementally emerged that point to both the excessiveness of Agent Ross’s use of force and to his intent. Exhaustive reporting has helped establish many of the circumstances surrounding the Jan. 7 shooting, including through a multi-angle, step-by-step analysis of the incident. It’s a good start in determining whether the force was unreasonable. The fact that agents had been able to pass by Good’s vehicle; that Good was clearly turning her steering wheel and vehicle away from the agents at the time shots were fired; that there was a notable gap between Agent’s Ross’s body and the vehicle, at least at the time of the second and third shots; that he was the only agent on the scene to even attempt to use any kind of force—all indicate that resorting to deadly force was not reasonable under the circumstances. Prosecutors would, of course, want to test, corroborate, and build on that evidence through, among other things, ballistics analysis, complete autopsy and medical reports, and witnesses accounts. Definitively establishing where the agent was positioned when he fired the shot that, according to an independent medical pathologist’s report, struck the left side of Good’s head and likely killed her, will be critical.

The more difficult question, as in so many of these cases, is one of intent. Prosecutors must prove the agent’s thinking and motivation. To this end, there is evidence that Agent Ross did not view Ms. Good as an imminent physical threat. Multiple videos show, for instance, that Agent Ross’s own vehicle was able to get around Ms. Good’s SUV, that he chose to walk around the front of Ms. Good’s vehicle (thereby exposing himself to possible harm, and against DHS policy) with one hand occupied by a cell phone, and that, just prior to the shooting, Ms. Good told the agents, “I’m pulling out.” Other evidence suggests that Agent Ross may have shot because he felt annoyed or disrespected by Ms. Good and her partner, rather than out of fear for his safety. The former are improper motivations that would support § 242’s willfulness prong. From the outset, for example, videos show that Ms. Good and her partner stopped their SUV in the street and honked the horn repeatedly in apparent protest of the ICE agents. Additionally—and courtesy of the agent’s own cellphone video, which importantly provides a view of the incident from his perspective—we can hear Ms. Good say, “That’s fine dude, I’m not mad at you,” and her partner sarcastically tell Agent Ross to “go get yourself some lunch, big boy.” Perhaps giving a window into his irritation at these remarks or Ms. Good’s attempt to drive away, Agent Ross muttered after firing his weapon at her, “fcking btch.” He walked away from Ms. Good’s SUV, which had by that point crashed into a parked vehicle (a clear sign that Ms. Good was injured or dead), and gestured to someone else to “call 911.”

Together, these facts are more than enough to show the allegation that Agent Ross willfully used excessive force when he shot Ms. Good is a serious one. And because that allegation, if proven, would constitute a violation of federal law, it is wholly appropriate to open a formal investigation into the shooting. (Indeed, it is no wonder that an initial FBI review reportedly concluded that opening an investigation was justified.)