{"id":591148,"date":"2021-07-14T15:06:02","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T19:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=591148"},"modified":"2021-07-14T15:06:06","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T19:06:06","slug":"arizona-senate-candidate-blake-masters-comes-out-swinging-on-big-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/arizona-senate-candidate-blake-masters-comes-out-swinging-on-big-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona Senate Candidate Blake Masters Comes Out Swinging on Big Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Farizona-senate-candidate-blake-masters-comes-out-swinging-on-big-tech%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=591148&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Screen-Shot-2021-07-14-at-1.55.25-PM-e1626285383699.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The latest entrant into Arizona\u2019s Republican Senate primary has strong views on Big Tech.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Break them up and focus on censorship. Google would be a good start,&#8221; the Peter Thiel acolyte Blake Masters told the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Masters, 34, announced his candidacy on Monday, making him the fifth GOP contender in what is shaping up to be a crowded field. The tech executive, who was Thiel\u2019s student at Stanford a decade ago, is a political neophyte largely unknown in Republican politics now vying for the chance to unseat Democrat Mark Kelly in what is likely to be one of the most important Senate races of the 2022 cycle. A win over Kelly, also a political newcomer, could be enough to flip the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>Having made his career in Silicon Valley, Masters is well-versed on the political issues posed by Big Tech. He is less confident in the articulation of his views on foreign policy. Asked whether he supports an American reentry into the Obama administration\u2019s Iran deal\u2014and about whether the U.S. should condition aid to Israel, as an increasing number of Democrats believe\u2014he voiced general opposition to the deal and offered to follow up with detailed answers.<\/p>\n<p>Masters is boosted by a $10 million donation from Thiel, and his candidacy is one demonstration of the PayPal cofounder\u2019s attempts to assert political clout. The Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance, also a former Thiel employee, received an identical $10 million donation.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Masters says he and Vance are friends, that he is backing the <em>Hillbilly Elegy<\/em> author in another crowded Republican primary, and that their political views are similar.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Broadly, I think we\u2019re running on pretty similar platforms,&#8221; Masters said.<\/p>\n<p>Like Vance, Masters is an advocate for a sort of populist economics that is gaining traction within the Republican Party as it grapples to piece together policy proposals that represent former president Donald Trump\u2019s attitudinal governance. He praises the Biden administration\u2019s Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Lina Khan, a bugbear for many conservatives, for her aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement, and champions a move away from an antitrust doctrine known as the consumer welfare standard first popularized by the conservative legal giant Robert Bork.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think you give up in advance if you look at standards from 100 years ago,&#8221; Masters said, &#8220;You\u2019re just tying your hands. That\u2019s what conservatives have done for a long time. You get rigid about the status quo, about a particular orthodoxy, and you fail to update your views based on real-world consequences.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Masters sounds a Trumpian note on globalization, a topic he wrote about critically as Thiel\u2019s co-author in the business bestseller <em>Zero to One<\/em>. &#8220;There\u2019s no free trade with China,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They subsidize their industry, they dump steel. When that happens, we have the right to respond with a tariff.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Masters holds senior positions at Thiel Capital and Thiel\u2019s charitable foundation. But he dismissed concerns about Thiel\u2019s influence on the campaign. &#8220;It\u2019s my campaign, it\u2019s not Peter\u2019s campaign,&#8221; he said, adding that Thiel &#8220;sees some promise in me, but he knows I\u2019ll be an independent-minded senator.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Democrats have for years worked to move Arizona into the blue column. Although it was once a red state represented by Republicans John McCain and Jon Kyl, President Joe Biden prevailed over Donald Trump in the state in 2020 by a narrow margin. The state is now represented by two Democratic senators, and Republicans are looking for an opportunity to pick off Kelly, who won a special election last year and will face voters again in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Masters, a Tucson native, says he is focusing his campaign on immigration, big tech censorship, and what he calls &#8220;pro-family policy.&#8221; He\u2019s an immigration hawk who is calling for a return to the Trump administration\u2019s &#8220;Remain in Mexico&#8221; policy, which the Biden administration reversed. The rule required asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases were adjudicated in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Halting construction of the border wall and practically inviting people to come in had predictably disastrous consequences,&#8221; Masters says.<\/p>\n<p>Masters will face off against the solar power executive Jim Lamon and Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich, who is entering the primary on the heels of a Supreme Court victory that vindicated the state\u2019s voting regulations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest entrant into Arizona\u2019s Republican Senate primary has strong views on Big Tech. &#8220;Break them up and focus on censorship. Google would be a good start,&#8221; the Peter Thiel &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2314692,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Screen-Shot-2021-07-14-at-1.55.25-PM-e1626285383699.png","fifu_image_alt":"Arizona Senate Candidate Blake Masters Comes Out Swinging on Big Tech","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-591148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Screen-Shot-2021-07-14-at-1.55.25-PM-e1626285383699.png","fifu_image_alt":"Arizona Senate Candidate Blake Masters Comes Out Swinging on Big Tech","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2314692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}