Democrat Rep.
Ro Khanna (CA-17) is urging a reset inside his own party as democratic socialists topple longtime incumbents, arguing that the Democratic establishment has abandoned working-class voters and opened the door for the far left to surge.
During a wide-ranging appearance on Fox News, Khanna framed the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as a symptom of deep economic discontent, even as he tried to distance himself from some of the groups most radical positions, according to RedState. He insisted that the DSAs growing clout reflects a demand for reform within the Democratic Party, not a wholesale ideological revolution, and cast himself as an FDR Democrat seeking to reclaim blue-collar voters who have drifted away in recent decades.
Host Shannon Bream pressed Khanna on the string of socialist-backed candidates who have ousted entrenched Democrat incumbents and on the broader ideological tug-of-war now consuming the party. Khanna did not dispute that the insurgents are winning, but he argued that their success stems from a vacuum created by party elites who have failed to address the cost-of-living crisis facing ordinary Americans.
Khanna said voters struggling with basic expenses are looking for an alternative to the party establishment and are gravitating toward candidates who at least acknowledge their economic pain. "People are upset at an unfair political and economic system. They cant afford gas, they cant afford food, young people cant afford to buy a home or get a job."
That explanation conveniently allows Democrats to blame their woes on insufficient government activism rather than on the big-spending, regulation-heavy policies that have helped drive up the cost of food, housing, energy, and nearly everything else. Instead of questioning the progressive economic agenda that has coincided with soaring inflation and stagnant real wages, Khannas critique assumes the answer is more intervention, not less.
Still, he was careful to draw a formal line between his own views and some of the DSAs most extreme goals. Of course we need borders, he told Bream. A nation needs borders, a nation needs secure borders.
He also stated that prisons are necessary, though he quickly pivoted to lamenting that people are still incarcerated for marijuana offenses, a standard progressive talking point. Those modest distinctions hardly qualify as bold stands in a party where the activist base has spent years pushing abolish ICE, defund the police, and other radical slogans into the mainstream.
One week earlier, DSA National Co-Chair Megan Romer had appeared on the same Fox News program and confirmed that the organizations 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, a wish list that would dismantle the constitutional order and free-market system that conservatives view as the backbone of American prosperity.
Khanna, however, treated the socialist victories as a potentially useful correction for his party rather than an existential threat. "Ill tell you why theyre winning. People are upset at an unfair political and economic system."
He went on to rebrand his own agenda in populist terms, trying to occupy the space between the establishment and the far left. "Ive 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 Americas next New Deal, and thatsI call myself an FDR Democrat, and I think thats a big tent that can actually bring change in this country."
Khannas rhetoric echoes the language of the New Deal era, but it also overlaps heavily with the economic narrative socialists are using to justify far more sweeping government control. "The Democratic Party needs reform. Look, this is a party that hasnt delivered enough for working-class Americans," Khanna also stated. "What people are saying is weve 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 Chinas admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO) for eroding the partys working-class base, a critique that echoes themes long championed by conservatives skeptical of globalism. His proposed remedy, however, is not deregulation or tax relief but a revival of large-scale federal programs, the same terrain on which the DSA is pushing for an even more radical transformation of the American economy.
Khanna eventually described the internal challenge from the left as healthy, so long as it ultimately benefits ordinary Americans who have been shafted in the current economy. That framing suggests he sees the socialist surge less as a warning sign than as leverage to drag the party further toward expansive government and redistributionist policies.
Other Democrats are sounding far less sanguine about the DSAs advance. Democrat Rep. Tom Suozzi (NY-03) recently warned that the party must confront the socialists directly rather than dismiss their victories as a quirk of deep-blue districts.
"I think you just come out head-on, and take it on and say, 'These guys are wrong. Weve got nothing to do with them.'" Suozzi is running in a district President Donald Trump carried in 2024, which may explain his urgency in drawing a sharp line between mainstream Democrats and the far left.
Khanna, by contrast, represents a safely Democrat Silicon Valley district and can afford to view the socialist wave as an opportunity for internal reform rather than a political liability. That geographic and political insulation makes it easier for him to flirt with economic patriotism and Americas next New Deal without confronting how far the DSAs agenda strays from constitutional limits and market principles.
The socialists have already moved beyond abstract policy debates and are actively removing Democrat incumbents who stand in their way, reshaping the party from the inside. Khannas response amounts to an admission that these insurgents understand the frustrations of Democrat voters better than the current leadership does, even as he proposes to follow their economic message leftward while hoping that borders, prisons, and the constitutional structure somehow survive the journey.
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