The perverse incentives that will drive the 2028 Democrat primary and the sad story of Representative Ro Khanna

Whoever wants to be the nominee in 2028, needs to understand that the modern Democrat Party is in the process of both being devoured by Democratic Socialists and consumed by Trump derangement.

Once upon a time, Ro Khanna was considered a reasonable Democrat in Republican circles.  While the Representative from Silicon Valley might’ve been unabashedly liberal, he was the sort of person one could talk to and have a meaningful conversation even if you disagreed.  A frequent guest on Fox News, he was not known for breathing political fire, taking advantage of stupid political stunts, or associating too closely with the more radical elements of his party.  Though no one would call him a centrist, he seemed to have enough common sense to seek a middle ground where appropriate, acknowledging that the ideas of both parties have limits and flaws, and no matter the topic at hand, simply refused to talk down to people, never coming across as hateful or dismissive of his political adversaries.  As recently as last year, Representative Khanna was so adept at talking to normal people that conservative firebrand and pugnacious columnist Kurt Schlichter described him as “The Democrat We Conservatives Need to Worry About in 2028.”  Writing for Townhall.com, he dismissed a parade of other candidates from Kamala Harris to Gavin Newsom, before claiming that “No, it’s not a very exciting field. It certainly doesn’t terrify me. But there is one guy who worries me. There’s one guy who’s doing things differently, who seems to be aiming for the empty ‘I’m not crazy and I don’t hate you’ lane to the nomination.  It’s Representative Ro Khanna from California, specifically Silicon Valley.”  

After briefly describing his resume –  a graduate of Yale Law School before it was “woke,” deep ties to the tech sector – Mr. Schlicter proceeded to detail what made Representative Khanna a potentially dangerous candidate from the Republican perspective as a result of a conversation with him as the guest host of the Hugh Hewitt Show.  Though he was surprised the progressive representative was willing to speak to him at all, he was even more surprised that, “He doesn’t seem to hate us…he makes it hard to dislike him. Ro Khanna came on an unashamedly right-wing show with an unashamedly bomb-throwing right-wing guest host without a hint of fear or malice, explaining that he believes he should be challenged by our ideas…he wasn’t afraid to give me answers even when I might not like them. No sugarcoating it – speaking as a guy who talked to juries for a living, that directness and candor can be compelling.”  Though I’ve never had the pleasure of speaking to Representative Khanna personally, Mr. Schlicter’s sense aligned with what I’ve seen from numerous TV interviews over the years.  While I never doubted his progressivism – he was, after all an early backer of Senator Bernie Sanders in 2016 – he seemed like the sort of reasonably free and common sense thinker that could appeal to the average person, not committed to any particular party or political ideology, and he seemed to implicitly understand the old adage that you get more flies with honey.  Unlike many Democrats these days who regularly refer to President Donald Trump’s supporters as some variation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables,” Representative Khanna preferred to meet people where they were and try to persuade them rather than attack.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Representative Khanna is highly ambitious and armed with around $250 million from his wife’s side of the family, appears to be planning a presidential run in 2028.  Under normal circumstances, this would necessarily require him to lean more into his leftie credentials before pivoting back to the center should he be the nominee – to be fair, this is the same as any Republican politician would have to lean right – but as everyone knows the circumstances are far from normal.  Even before an official announcement, the Democrat Party will require any potential candidate to become a card carrying member of the resistance, sadly prompting them into ever more ridiculous bouts of performative outrage and ever more ridiculous associations with the socialist flavor of the month.  As such, he became an early backer of disgraced Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.  After ignoring the Nazi tattoo, the online rants against women, minorities, even other soldiers, the admission of masturbating in a porta potty, and other obviously disqualifying flaws, he continued to defend him in the wake of The New York Times’ breaking the not-unexpected news that Mr. Platner had also serially mistreated women in his personal life, everything from sending nude photos to girls that weren’t his wife on a messaging app used by pedophiles to sexual harassment if not outright abuse.  Rather than admit he’d made a mistake backing such a self-evidently volatile and troubled individual, Representative Khanna attempted to have it both ways, repeating the campaign spin that this behavior was relegated to a “dark time” in his life because he suffered from PTSD, ignoring that the use of the pedophile app was much more recent after he was married, while claiming it was misogynist and unacceptable.

“Here you have a case,” he told CBS’ Face the Nation, “of someone who had a dark chapter in his life, was in toxic relationships, was ashamed about it, who served this country, and the Maine voters are saying, ‘Look, let’s give him some grace, and his focus is stopping these wars, and it’s getting national health insurance, and it’s taking on economic inequality.’”  “I want to be clear: His actions were misogynistic, they were shameful, they were wrong, but they didn’t come as a surprise to a lot of the folks in Maine,” he continued, claiming bizarrely that Mr. Platner had taken responsibility for it or something, rather than the truth that he tried to hide everything and then some, denying on multiple occasions that there were potential and proverbial skeletons in his closet.  “People in Maine knew that he had had two tours of duty in Iraq. He came back broken in a dark place. That doesn’t excuse his behavior, but they knew this. He was in Washington, and then he went back to Maine, and he started an oyster farm. He took accountability. He himself has said it was shameful.”  Despite offering his continued support – indeed campaigning with him just the Friday before – Representative Khanna must’ve sensed something else might be revealed, perhaps even worse.  Whatever the reason, he was sure to add a caveat, “If there was evidence of violence. I would not support him.  If there was evidence of sexual assault, I’d have zero support for him. He acknowledges that he was misogynistic. It was shameful. One thing I want to make very clear: we should not be attacking the women who came forward. We should not be attacking the journalists.”

Of course, Politico provided that evidence last week, prompting Representative Khanna to withdraw his support, then promptly spin the entire situation by pretending this outcome wasn’t obvious from the beginning.  Once again, the venue was Meet the Press this past weekend.  “You have stood by him through a series of previous controversies, from a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol to his online posts blaming survivors of sexual assault, even after The New York Times published allegations from ex-girlfriends describing a pattern of emotional abuse, aggressive behavior, which he denies we should say,” Kristen Welker prefaced her question before asking. “Why weren’t those past controversies a breaking point for you?”  “For me, the line always was sexual assault or sexual violence, and as soon as that came out, I was the first person to withdraw my endorsement,” he replied. “But I will say I got that call wrong, and if there is some self-reflection, is that we all need to see the signs earlier of people who may engage in domestic violence. I wasn’t the only one. You had Planned Parenthood. You had Senator [Elizabeth] Warren. You had the entire Democratic Party. But I did get that call wrong.”  Later in the same interview he let slip the truth that he – and likely the other Democrats mentioned – was willing to overlook obvious, glaring character flaws he would assail anyone else for because of Mr. Platner’s Democrat Socialists of America bonafides.  “I think what is important, though, is to understand his politics. He was opposed to foreign wars, for Medicare for All and why the progressive movement, more broadly, why these issues are resonating,” he rationalized.

Not content with simply defending the indefensible, Representative Khanna also chose last weekend to stage a ridiculous political stunt at the expense of our ally, Israel.  Earlier in the week, he traveled to the country and though he refused to meet with survivors of October 7, he claimed on Saturday that he had been held against his will by both Israeli settlers and the official Israeli military in the West Bank.  Posting on social media he claimed that “settlers, brandishing American made M4s” held him along with other Americans in a bus and that when the IDF arrived, they sided “sided with the settlers & continued our detention.”  To be clear everyone understood his intention in making this public, he insisted the IDF “made a big mistake” and ended his statement with “you will be hearing more soon.”  Of course, officials of a foreign country holding an American Congressman captive even for a brief period is potentially sensational, an outrage if you will, and he was sure to both make this point – and tie it to the Palestinian cause when he posted a second time, “What happened to me in the West Bank was an outrage. But it is nothing compared to what Palestinians face every day.  It is time to share their stories that American politics have silenced and ignored. This is our first video about Palestinians we met.”  In the same Meet the Press interview, he reiterated these points.  “What happened was unprecedented. They had violent settlers detain American citizens, including an American government official. You had these settlers brandishing M4 [rifles], kicking the tires of our van, laughing at us, mocking at us, videotaping us.  We were detained for about 20 minutes, fearful of our lives. Then the IDF comes, four soldiers. They tell our translator that they’re on the side of the settlers. They further detain us and block us in.”  “I heard the prime minister,” he continued, referencing Benjamin Netanyahu, “and he said Israel is a country of law and order.  Let me be very specific: the prime minister needs to open an investigation on these violent settlers…[and] needs to have an investigation on these four IDF officers.  Security cameras can see that they were involved in the detention of American citizens. How dare they mistreat people with an American passport that way?”  

Unfortunately, to reach this conclusion Representative Khanna left out a few important facts.  First, he was traveling in an area that was restricted and he failed to obtain permission beforehand. According to the State Department, he didn’t even inform the US Embassy.  Second, he was traveling with a New York Times reporter and a camera crew, eager to film the incident.  Further a video released of the supposed detention reveals it wasn’t anything of the sort at least once actual government officials arrived.  Rather than terrorizing them, the IDF simply blocked the road and informed the travelers they were waiting for the police before releasing them.  There was no violence, no guns, merely polite dialogue.  As even his own colleague and a fellow Democrat in the House of Representatives, Josh Gottheimer put it, “Let’s be honest, this was a publicity stunt. Channels exist to protect elected officials, and Khanna intentionally entered a restricted, unstable area without coordinating to provoke a response,” but as late as yesterday, Representative Khanna was still pushing the line that some unspeakable outrage had been perpetrated upon him.  Responding to someone who claimed it was not the big deal he was making it out to be, he replied on X, “You describe the incident as ‘a bit delayed in driving forward.’ In America and most democracies, being blockaded by armed settlers and the IDF for 75 minutes (which no one disputes) would constitute detention/false imprisonment and the perpetrators arrested. Israel’s response not understanding what rights are is almost more disturbing than the horrific incident itself witnessed by the NYT photographer, other Americans, and Israelis and confirmed by the Jerusalem Post, NYT, and Reuters.”

One wonders where Representative Khanna was during the pandemic, when authorities in his own state were locking people up for being on the beach by themselves, but sad as this transformation may be, it’s not surprising.  He may be many things these days, but Representative Khanna is nothing if not smart, and he implicitly understands that the modern Democrat Party is in the process of both being devoured by Democratic Socialists and consumed by Trump derangement.  If he has any hope of prevailing in the presidential primary, he has no choice except to entirely shed his common sense image to craft one far more radical, far more opposed to Israel, and far more abrasive to progressive’s perceived adversaries.  He might be the first to do this brazenly or dare I say clumsily, but he certainly won’t be the last.  At a time when more than a decade of President Trump’s volatile (yes, I am using the same word that previously described Mr. Plattner on purpose), bombastic personality might be wearing thin and an opening is likely to emerge to someone who can simply sound reasonable, but Democrats simply can’t help themselves.  Unless something radical changes between now and 2028, we can expect the perverse incentives of a quasi-socialist driven, Trump- and Israel-hating primary to prompt even more extreme transformations.