RedState95%
Ro Khanna Admits Democrats Opened the Door to Socialist Takeover - And That They Shouldn't Close It 61%
By Ben Smith64%
8/2/2026, 12:46:39 PM
Topics: US Politics
BS Summary: This article contains 14 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Politically Right Leaning Bias, and Confirmation Bias, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 23% saturation with 153 hits. Analysis detected 716 faulty-reasoning hits from 666 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 50.6% and a BS Rank of 61% (10,076 of 25,278 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 60.10% of the article peer group.
Democrat Rep.
Ro Khanna (CA-17) has an explanation for why socialists keep knocking off Democrat incumbents: The party failed working-class voters and left an opening for the far left to exploit.
During a full interview on the Fox News Sunday program, Khanna argued that economic frustration is driving the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)’s recent gains.
He rejected some of the DSA’s most extreme positions, including abolishing borders and prisons, while describing its growing influence as part of a needed reform movement inside the Democrat Party.
Host Shannon Bream pressed him on the socialist candidates who have defeated longtime Democrat incumbents and the broader battle over where the party is headed.
Khanna said voters struggling with basic expenses are looking for an alternative to the party establishment.
"People are upset at an unfair political and economic system.
They can’t afford gas, they can’t afford food, young people can’t afford to buy a home or get a job."
That is a convenient diagnosis for Democrats.
The party’s problem, in this telling, comes from failing to deliver enough government intervention rather than from the policies that helped make food, housing, energy, and nearly everything else more expensive.
Khanna did draw a line between his own views and some of the DSA’s stated goals.
“Of course we need borders,” he told Bream.
“A nation needs borders, a nation needs secure borders.”
Read More: After Weeks of Socialist Gains, Trump Warns 'The Communists Are Finally Making Their Move'
DSA Co-Chair Confirms Its Extreme Agenda in Stunning Admission on Live TV
He also made clear that prisons are necessary, though he immediately pivoted to complaints about people serving time for marijuana offenses.
Those should hardly count as courageous positions.
One week earlier, DSA National Co-Chair Megan Romer confirmed on the same program that the organization’s long-term platform includes abolishing borders, ICE, and prisons.
Romer also endorsed abolishing the Senate, replacing the presidency and Supreme Court, defunding the Pentagon, and placing large corporations under government or public ownership.
Khanna, however, treated the socialist victories as a potentially useful correction for his party:
"I’ll tell you why they’re winning.
People are upset at an unfair political and economic system."
"I’ve called it economic patriotism, that we need a future economy delivering prosperity for every American and every community, not just enriching billionaires in a few places.
And America’s next New Deal, and that’s—I call myself an FDR Democrat, and I think that’s a big tent that can actually bring change in this country."
"The Democratic Party needs reform.
Look, this is a party that hasn’t delivered enough for working-class Americans," Khanna also stated.
"What people are saying is we’ve got to get back toward FDR roots.
We need to be a party that is for the working class."
He blamed Democrats’ support for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and China’s admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO) for helping the party lose its working-class foundation.
His answer was a return to Franklin D.
Roosevelt-style government programs, the same economic territory socialists are using to advance a much more radical agenda.
Khanna eventually called the internal challenge healthy, provided it benefits “ordinary Americans who have been shafted in the current economy.”
The socialists have already moved beyond policy debates and begun removing Democrat incumbents who stand in their way.
Khanna’s answer amounts to an admission that they understand the party’s voters better than its current leadership does.
His proposed response is to follow their economic message leftward while hoping the borders, prisons, and constitutional structure somehow survive the trip.
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Analysis
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