Yeah it's not so much sponsorship (see other reply on donations) as "affinity". GOOG/FB employees lean D, and R's have historical beef (e.g. Google could have stopped the whole "santorum" thing). R's are still upset about that [reliably comes up in my meetings w/ R staffers] and the perceived "suppression" of conservative speech.
The cynicism is justified, but the second clause of the sentence should be, "when the consumer harm standard is the driving force behind antitrust enforcement." Unless the new brandeisians/"hipster antitrust" people pull some kind of Jedi mind trick that carries a case all the way to SCOTUS, we are all out of luck. It is difficult to overturn 30 years of case law.
The cynicism is justified, but the second clause of the sentence should be, "when the consumer harm standard is the driving force behind antitrust enforcement." Unless the new brandeisians/"hipster antitrust" people pull some kind of Jedi mind trick that carries a case all the way to SCOTUS, we are all out of luck. It is difficult to overturn 30 years of case law.