Smart. Tactical. Sick.

The GOP’s Trojan horse is a regulatory kill switch. It doesn’t ask Congress to act — it lets silence destroy everything.

In a move buried deep within a sweeping GOP tax and border bill, House Republicans are pushing to consolidate federal antitrust authority inside the Justice Department — stripping it from the independent Federal Trade Commission. That shift would place antitrust enforcement directly under presidential control, weakening bipartisan oversight and tightening the executive’s grip on how monopolies are policed.

Welcome to step one in the quiet construction of oligarchy in the budding United States of Banana Republica — proudly sponsored by the Grand Old Party.

But that’s not the only move. There’s another — even more potent.

Also buried in the bill is the REINS Act — a long-standing GOP project designed to rewrite how federal regulations are made. Today, agencies can enact rules, and Congress can intervene to block them. Under REINS, that process flips: no major rule would take effect unless Congress explicitly votes to approve it. If Congress does nothing — which it often does — the rule dies.

That means most new regulations won’t survive — not because they’re rejected, but because they’re ignored.

Smart. Tactical. Sick.

Republicans are branding this as a restoration of congressional power. In reality, it’s the opposite. A provision in the bill would allow Trump to eliminate thousands of existing federal regulations unless Congress explicitly re-approves them within five years. That silence-by-default mechanism becomes a slow-motion repeal machine — gutting decades of environmental, financial, and labor protections without a single new vote.

The GOP’s Gamble

The REINS Act faces serious obstacles under the Byrd Rule, which limits reconciliation to provisions with a direct budgetary impact. But because the GOP is advancing the tax and border bill through reconciliation, they rewrote REINS — narrowing the language to cover only "major rules that increase revenue," hoping that’s enough to satisfy Senate rules.

This is a calculated risk. By embedding REINS in a must-pass reconciliation bill, the GOP is testing the edges of Senate procedure. If the parliamentarian rejects the maneuver, the provision dies. But if she lets it through, Republicans will have succeeded in transferring enormous regulatory power from federal agencies to Congress — and, from there, to the White House.

This isn’t budgeting.

It’s a procedural Trojan horse — designed to enact a decade-old ideological goal under cover of fiscal policy.

What Can Democrats Do?

First, speak clearly. Let the country see what’s happening. This is dangerous — not just because of what’s in the bill, but because of how it’s being smuggled in. Trump is now using Congress to limit its own power while stripping independence from regulatory agencies. This is how democracies erode — not with a bang, but with a procedural shrug.

Make no mistake: GOP donors won’t complain. It’s easier to cut deals with one man than answer to an institution. That’s the appeal of autocracy — fewer rules, faster profits.

Democrats can stop this. But not with quiet memos. They need to hit the ground — fast, loud, and with coordinated public pressure. The more sunlight this gets, the harder it will be for the Senate parliamentarian to greenlight it. She’ll need an ironclad justification, and I don’t believe it exists.

The GOP knows this can’t survive as a standalone bill — too much scrutiny. So they’re hiding it inside a broader package, alongside tax cuts and border theatrics, hoping no one notices the deregulation bomb ticking inside.

If Democrats mobilize now, they can defuse it. But if they hesitate — if they let this pass silently — the next collapse won’t be a surprise. It’ll be the system doing exactly what this bill was designed to make it do.