Reads of the Week: Antitrust and Delivery, the Capitol Security Fence, and Thoughts on Presidents Day

Each week, we’ll be featuring opinion pieces from the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. Do you dream of having bylines like these? Learn more about how the Writing Fellows Program can help boost your writing career!

Aggressive antitrust enforcement could kill contact-free delivery by Kir Nuthi (Spring 2020) in the Orange County Register

As we near the one-year anniversary of social distancing, it’s safe to say that our economy has taken quite the blow. In December alone, America lost 140,000 more jobs — adding to the net 10 million jobs lost since April. And with mutating versions of the coronavirus threatening an already-shaky vaccination program, many Americans will likely remain at home longer than we’d hoped.

Unfortunately, lawmakers, the Department of Justice, and many State Attorneys General forget the widespread benefits America’s online businesses bring us every day. They’re just dead set on making things even harder on us…

Capitol Hill is my neighborhood, not a militarized zone. Tear down oppressive fencing by Elizabeth Held (Spring 2015) in USA Today

Years ago, I accompanied a European colleague to a series of meetings at the United States Capitol building. He insisted we arrive hours before his first appointment, expecting the required security screening to be time-intensive. Instead, we waited in a short line, walked through a metal detector and put our bags on the security screening conveyor belt. The entire process couldn’t have taken more than 15 minutes. 

How wonderful, my companion remarked, how American that citizens could so easily visit their legislators…

On This Presidents Day, Stop Worshiping the Imperial Presidency by Billy Binion (Spring 2018) in Reason

Ah, Presidents Day: a much-needed moment to slow down and commemorate presidents past and present, because we definitely don’t have enough of that in this country.

I jest!

Walking around Los Angeles, you’d be hard-pressed not to pass someone sporting BIDEN-HARRIS merchandise—a shirt, a bumper sticker, a sweatshirt, a mask. Back where I grew up in Virginia, the same is true, though they have a different hero: For years, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” adorned the lawns, cars, and hats of those who wanted you to know they stood, and perhaps still stand, with former President Donald Trump…