While the rendering of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to room temperature and the Capitol Hill prevarication of Jeffrey Epstein frequent flyer Bill Clinton have understandably sucked up all the oxygen in the room, there was a fascinating twist this weekend in a story that will likely affect your day-to-day life to a greater deal than either of those other stories.

“Two of Hollywood’s oldest studios may be consolidating into one,” the Associated Press reports. “In a shocking twist after a monthslong bidding war, Paramount has emerged as the apparent victor in the fight to acquire Warner Bros.”

Who cares about Hollywood? you ask. It’s a great question, inasmuch as the only time I tend to think about Tinseltown is when I yearn for a meteor strike. But Hollywood isn’t just Hollywood anymore. These massive companies are no longer merely moviemakers; they’re media titans. So they determine not only what you see on the silver screen but also what you see on TV and on your phone.

As NBC “News” reports, Paramount’s bid for Warner Bros. includes not just the film studio but HBO, the HBO Max streaming platform, and a bunch of cable channels that include — wait for it! — CNN.

The Paramount bid is $31 per share, or $111 billion, a significant sum above the best Netflix offer of $27.75 per share.

Then there’s this: Paramount’s CEO is David Ellison, and his dad, Larry, is Oracle’s chief technology officer, President Trump’s friend and neighbor, and the world’s sixth-richest man. And last August, they took control of Paramount in an $8 billion merger with Skydance. So the Ellisons seem very serious about media mogulship, and they have the muscle to impose their will.

This is what has the Left all up in arms. “A Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. merger is an antitrust disaster threatening higher prices and fewer choices for American families,” screeched Massachusetts Democrat Senator Elizabeth “Honest Injun” Warren said in a statement. “A handful of Trump-aligned billionaires are trying to seize control of what you watch and charge you whatever price they want. With the cloud of corruption looming over Trump’s Department of Justice, it’ll be up to the American people to speak up and state attorneys general to enforce the law.”

Strange, but I don’t remember Senator Warren raising hell when the leading suitor to purchase Warner Bros. was Netflix, which has a “creative partnership” with Higher Ground, the media company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama. On the other hand, I can’t blame Warren for being concerned. She’s no doubt already seen and felt the effects of a fairer, more balanced, less Trump-deranged CBS News, which is under the Paramount umbrella.

Sadly for Warren and the Obamas, Netflix backed away from its pursuit of Warner Bros. on Thursday, in the face of the offer made by Ellison’s Paramount Skydance.

If regulators approve the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal, it’ll be one of the biggest mergers in history. If it happens, will it also be the beginning of an ideological rebalancing of American media? If we can glean anything from the concern of Elizabeth Warren and her fellow Democrats, I’d say yes.

Back in December, Trump expressed concern about what was then shaping up to be a Netflix-Warner merger, calling Netflix “a great company” that had done “a phenomenal job,” and calling its CEO, Ted Sarandos, “a fantastic man.” But, he added, “They have a very big market share, and when they have Warner Brothers, you know, that share goes up a lot so, I don’t know. I’ll be involved in that decision, too. But they have a very big market share.”

If that wasn’t clear, Trump added, “It could be a problem.”

Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee added, “Netflix’s proposed acquisition of Warner Brothers raised serious antitrust concerns. When a massive streaming platform consolidates even more TV shows and movies behind a single paywall, American families lose. Walking away from this deal is a win for consumers.”

Lee is right. And Trump’s praise of the Netflix CEO notwithstanding, Netflix isn’t our friend, and its product isn’t family-friendly.

To be sure, though, I don’t like the idea of my president being personally involved in media mergers, but I do like the idea of an administration, via its Department of Justice, guarding against fake-news media monopolies. So call me conflicted here.

But to the extent that the American people will have better, more wholesome, more ideologically balanced choices in their media consumption, I’m not at all conflicted.