Controlling Personalities Will 'Foregone Conclusion' You

Manipulators are all around us. Some unintentionally manipulate. Some have an agenda. But they all use tactics from a small, finite set that need widely-known names for the civilians among us to navigate our fast-moving world.

If the phrase "foregone conclusion" could be used as a verb, it would vividly describe one manipulation tactic actors use.

Example: a large, even "mega-" corporation, actor A, announces plans to merge with another, actor B. Speculation abounds about the concentration in power the merged company would hold. The government's lawyers contest the deal in court on grounds the combined companies would diminish competition and stifle market activity.

In a surprise ruling, a judge strikes down the government's argument that the merger would hurt competition. This clears one hurdle for the two companies to merge but a few hurdles remain: the judge's ruling could be appealed or a stay of proceedings could apply.

Competing companies, the few remaining owned neither by actor A, actor B, nor companies wishing to merge in a similar fashion, publish these facts two days after the judge's ruling:

The Justice Department still has 60 days to appeal the decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon.

AT&T agreed to temporarily manage Time Warner’s Turner networks separately from DirecTV, including setting prices and managing personnel, as part of the deal approved by Judge Richard Leon late Thursday.

The conditions agreed to by AT&T would remain in effect until Feb. 28, 2019, the conclusion of the case or an appeal.
- Reuters June 14 2018 3:00PM PST

Reuters is one news outlet not looking to gain financially from this merger. Another is Bloomberg News:

"The agreement doesn’t prevent the department’s antitrust division from appealing the decision issued Tuesday by a federal judge rejecting the U.S. antitrust lawsuit against the deal. The government is still weighing whether to appeal the ruling, a Justice Department official said."
- Bloomberg News June 14 2018 4:00PM PST

One hour later, actor B moves to get on with it without awaiting appeal, and foregone conclusions the public using its influential media outlet that will become more so post-merger:

"AT&T announced Thursday evening that it has completed the acquisition of Time Warner. The announcement comes two days after a judge ruled that the deal does not violate antitrust laws."
- CNN June 14, 2018 5:00PM PST

What does that mean in legal or contract terms, it "completed the acquisition" if the government has six months to appeal? To seal advancement, actor B foregone conclusions us one step more - by announcing the merged company will have a new name.

It's official: AT&T now owns Time Warner. The deal just took effect. The Time Warner name will be retired: AT&T says "a new name for this business will be announced later..."

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 15, 2018

Depending on how savvy the public and press, and the justice department's whims, an appeal could still happen. Or they won't file an appeal but the process will play out.

Or people could throw up their hands in defeat under the impression the process already played out, having been foregone conclusioned en masse without having a name for what happened.

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Further Reading:

Two LTEs in the NYT today speak of concern over the merger at the same time net neutrality ends.   nytimes.com







This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.