Seems like wishful thinking. The current “New Right” admin has betrayed much of what is argued for here. DOGE and Vought destroyed CFPB on completely spurious grounds, Trump has pardoned and cultivated crypto scammers (and gotten in on the scamming himself), Gail Slater has now been ousted at DOJ, and the list goes on. Those of us who supported a populist agenda and hoped to see it realized by this admin should be honest about this.
Isn’t that essentially what the author is saying? I took his point to be that the New Right is ignoring the issue of consumer protection to its own detriment.
The article claims this admin is not doing enough of it. My argument is Trump is deliberately undermining it, something the author seems in denial about. It seems like an egregious omission, for one thing, to write an article on this topic and not even mention the dismantling of the CFPB.
The author wrote 'When thousands of Americans—especially elderly Americans—are preyed upon by offshore scammers hawking cryptocurrencies or business-building opportunities, that is a scheme to immiserate the American populace and enrich bad actors abroad.' Obviously its OK if they're scammed and immeserated by bad actors at home, especially if they are in the Oval Office. I also find it deeply ironic that a MAGA adjacent individual is championing consumer protection while MAGA complains about European regulation, most of which is intended to serve the common good by regulating corporations. If we dare to try and regulate American social media corporations from rotting our brains we're threatened with more random tarrifs.
The cognitive dissonance is extreme. We even saw Fox News hosts and GOP pols starting to praise Europe’s food regulations due to MAHA’s influence while still of course calling the EU regulatory state communist and totalitarian.
Two candidates, insurance companies and credit card companies. I've never had an auto claim go smoothly. Insurers alway offer way less than something is worth. Credit card rates and levels of debt are horrible. Yes many would no longer be able to borrow money, and well they shouldn't if they are horrible about paying it back. We could reduce useless interest payments by billions or more.
For myself, the auto insurance companies claims people have been easy to deal with and I have experienced claims where the incident was my fault, another driver's fault, a criminal's fault and a deceased deer's fault. For my priority see my separate comment on health care.
Ridiculous to consider the right wing a champion of consumer protection. Trump’s key contributions in that area have been to gut the consumer financial protection bureau and spend his presidency making billions off various frauds and grifts.
That so many commentators championing the “New Right” refuse to recognize the work Biden’s — really, Warren’s and Sanders’s — antitrust team did for the sake of this bipartisan issue is astounding.
The new right has many good ideas but has been singularly unsuccessful in translating those ideas into operational law. Look at the recent labor rights bills put forth by legislators of both parties. Never even brought to a vote. How lame is that?
This all sounds great, but I think there are too many Old Right Republicans in Congress, perfectly happy to let Working Americans keep paying the price, to even notice this issue. Maybe after the midterms....thanks for the excellent post!
A robust FTC is needed, but the Administration's obsession with destroying CFPB is shocking. Consumer complaints to CFPB are up 130% over last year. Yet consumer complaints go into a black hole with no response, as thousands did in February 2025 when the Administration stopped all work for 3 weeks.
CFPB’s Office of Servicemembers Affairs assists military members and veterans who are victims of financial fraud. Yet the Administration fought in court for permission to cut the office and fire the veterans on its staff.
And like FTC, CFPB has returned BILLIONS to cheated senior citizens, servicemember and other consumers, far beyond its budget.
I love the "new" right. Consumer protection? This is an administration who has a Secy of Homeland Security, the agency created to protect us, caught lying about deporting a cannibal who tried to "eat his own arms" while he was being deported. While she was standing next to Don. Apparently another attempt to warn us about the brown people "invading" us...
Seriously, she did.
Merely repeating what maga does in real life makes you feel like the crazy one...
Who will the “New Right” get campaign $$$ from to get “New Right” populist candidates elected to pass these consumer protection laws passes and signed into law?!?! Sounds like the “New Right” will be calling on Democrat donors! The irony!
Priority #1 has got to be the health care industry. This is a complete mess. Everyone wants to blame the insurance companies. While they are far from blameless, that's a gross oversimplification. Two other major players are the plan sponsors who don't look out for their members and violate their fiduciary duties and the providers themselves. This is so complex that there is no silver bullet. It will take a case of silver bullets. Plan sponsors for most Americans are employers, CMS, or the Obamacare exchanges. Start with CMS since it is a government agency and wouldn't need regulations, just competent management. I know that is a big ask for government but if you have never dealt with customer service there consider yourself lucky. All of the plan sponsors need to push back at insurance companies and providers but seldom do. Sponsoring ombudsman operations would help with customer service. I am a mean SOB with decades of experience running an employer plan and can fight on my own but that's not normal. Requiring an independent ombudsman would be a big help.
Also there's a lot of things plan sponsors can do with plan design to make things better. Insurance companies will do what sponsors tell them as long as you don't try to repeal math. But most sponsors are not strong enough.
The providers are the biggest mess. Running private equity out of town would be a good start. Vigorous antitrust would too. This would include action against the cartels that control entry to the professions. A sharp increase in the numbers of providers is drastically needed.No doctor goes to medical school to be a bean counter so they either outsource it or do it poorly. True for all medical professions. So there needs to be a competence upgrade for the people who actually do it. Standards for training including English language fluency are needed. Some places might need Spanish fluency as well. In my experience, some removals from practice or even criminal charges may be warranted.
Seems like wishful thinking. The current “New Right” admin has betrayed much of what is argued for here. DOGE and Vought destroyed CFPB on completely spurious grounds, Trump has pardoned and cultivated crypto scammers (and gotten in on the scamming himself), Gail Slater has now been ousted at DOJ, and the list goes on. Those of us who supported a populist agenda and hoped to see it realized by this admin should be honest about this.
Isn’t that essentially what the author is saying? I took his point to be that the New Right is ignoring the issue of consumer protection to its own detriment.
The article claims this admin is not doing enough of it. My argument is Trump is deliberately undermining it, something the author seems in denial about. It seems like an egregious omission, for one thing, to write an article on this topic and not even mention the dismantling of the CFPB.
The author wrote 'When thousands of Americans—especially elderly Americans—are preyed upon by offshore scammers hawking cryptocurrencies or business-building opportunities, that is a scheme to immiserate the American populace and enrich bad actors abroad.' Obviously its OK if they're scammed and immeserated by bad actors at home, especially if they are in the Oval Office. I also find it deeply ironic that a MAGA adjacent individual is championing consumer protection while MAGA complains about European regulation, most of which is intended to serve the common good by regulating corporations. If we dare to try and regulate American social media corporations from rotting our brains we're threatened with more random tarrifs.
The cognitive dissonance is extreme. We even saw Fox News hosts and GOP pols starting to praise Europe’s food regulations due to MAHA’s influence while still of course calling the EU regulatory state communist and totalitarian.
Two candidates, insurance companies and credit card companies. I've never had an auto claim go smoothly. Insurers alway offer way less than something is worth. Credit card rates and levels of debt are horrible. Yes many would no longer be able to borrow money, and well they shouldn't if they are horrible about paying it back. We could reduce useless interest payments by billions or more.
Insurance regulation is mostly a state law issue. I imagine you’d get very different experiences in different states
And credit cards would be the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which the Administration is trying to shut down.
For myself, the auto insurance companies claims people have been easy to deal with and I have experienced claims where the incident was my fault, another driver's fault, a criminal's fault and a deceased deer's fault. For my priority see my separate comment on health care.
Ridiculous to consider the right wing a champion of consumer protection. Trump’s key contributions in that area have been to gut the consumer financial protection bureau and spend his presidency making billions off various frauds and grifts.
That so many commentators championing the “New Right” refuse to recognize the work Biden’s — really, Warren’s and Sanders’s — antitrust team did for the sake of this bipartisan issue is astounding.
The new right has many good ideas but has been singularly unsuccessful in translating those ideas into operational law. Look at the recent labor rights bills put forth by legislators of both parties. Never even brought to a vote. How lame is that?
This all sounds great, but I think there are too many Old Right Republicans in Congress, perfectly happy to let Working Americans keep paying the price, to even notice this issue. Maybe after the midterms....thanks for the excellent post!
A robust FTC is needed, but the Administration's obsession with destroying CFPB is shocking. Consumer complaints to CFPB are up 130% over last year. Yet consumer complaints go into a black hole with no response, as thousands did in February 2025 when the Administration stopped all work for 3 weeks.
CFPB’s Office of Servicemembers Affairs assists military members and veterans who are victims of financial fraud. Yet the Administration fought in court for permission to cut the office and fire the veterans on its staff.
And like FTC, CFPB has returned BILLIONS to cheated senior citizens, servicemember and other consumers, far beyond its budget.
I love the "new" right. Consumer protection? This is an administration who has a Secy of Homeland Security, the agency created to protect us, caught lying about deporting a cannibal who tried to "eat his own arms" while he was being deported. While she was standing next to Don. Apparently another attempt to warn us about the brown people "invading" us...
Seriously, she did.
Merely repeating what maga does in real life makes you feel like the crazy one...
Good luck America.
Who will the “New Right” get campaign $$$ from to get “New Right” populist candidates elected to pass these consumer protection laws passes and signed into law?!?! Sounds like the “New Right” will be calling on Democrat donors! The irony!
Priority #1 has got to be the health care industry. This is a complete mess. Everyone wants to blame the insurance companies. While they are far from blameless, that's a gross oversimplification. Two other major players are the plan sponsors who don't look out for their members and violate their fiduciary duties and the providers themselves. This is so complex that there is no silver bullet. It will take a case of silver bullets. Plan sponsors for most Americans are employers, CMS, or the Obamacare exchanges. Start with CMS since it is a government agency and wouldn't need regulations, just competent management. I know that is a big ask for government but if you have never dealt with customer service there consider yourself lucky. All of the plan sponsors need to push back at insurance companies and providers but seldom do. Sponsoring ombudsman operations would help with customer service. I am a mean SOB with decades of experience running an employer plan and can fight on my own but that's not normal. Requiring an independent ombudsman would be a big help.
Also there's a lot of things plan sponsors can do with plan design to make things better. Insurance companies will do what sponsors tell them as long as you don't try to repeal math. But most sponsors are not strong enough.
The providers are the biggest mess. Running private equity out of town would be a good start. Vigorous antitrust would too. This would include action against the cartels that control entry to the professions. A sharp increase in the numbers of providers is drastically needed.No doctor goes to medical school to be a bean counter so they either outsource it or do it poorly. True for all medical professions. So there needs to be a competence upgrade for the people who actually do it. Standards for training including English language fluency are needed. Some places might need Spanish fluency as well. In my experience, some removals from practice or even criminal charges may be warranted.