The fiercest foes of America’s technology giants cheered when Lina Khan, a professor at Columbia Law School, was confirmed by the Senate last week for a seat on the Federal Trade Commission. Then the president handed them a gift they could hardly believe: He was naming her chairwoman of the antitrust agency.

“I am choked up,” tweeted Zephyr Teachout, the Fordham University law professor and author of anti-monopoly book Break ’Em Up. “This means so much for workers, equality, community, democracy.”