Netflix isn't buying CNN though, Paramount can just pick up Discovery on the cheap when its split off. There's no reason for them to even be trying to do a hostile bid either. I think this is just purely an ego/power trip thing.
It's scheduling. WBD was set to spin off Discovery Global in April --- after the March congressional primaries. The hostile bid creates leverage to get the TV networks spun off sooner, rather than later, to ensure that the Ellisons can pick them up Q1, in time to set the narrative for the congressional primaries.
Party X may have been planning on something, but party Y threw a wrench in the middle, causing party X to have to make some response. By implication, party X believes party Y to be throwing a wrench, hence, party X must act. Therefore, party Y also must be planning something that counteracts party X's desires. If it weren't so, party X would not act (as that costs money).
The thing that contradicts Party X's desires can just be not doing the thing Party X wants done, it doesn't have to be doing an equal and opposite thing.
This seems like a variation on the fallacy of the excluded middle.
It's closer to so-far-unnamed fallacy of "the right has no agency." Everything they do is in response to something done by the democrats or the left or whatever and so they aren't responsible for their actions.
Netflix and those involved hasn't conclusively metamorphosed into a Larry Ellison-esque state of Lawn Moweriness.
Make no mistake, it (Netflix) is still a billionaire corp; on the humanity scale, it scores quite low, but not lawn mower low. They're still outside the Ellison event horizon.
