Ro Khanna is running for President of the United States in the Jacobin lane, trying to outflank AOC and Bernie Sanders to become the centi-millionaire voice of the Sans-Coulottes. 

Khanna would seem an unlikely leader of a people's revolution, coming from a family of significant privilege and political access, both here in the United States and in the ancestral home of Punjab, India, where his grandfather was a prominent politician. 

While AOC and Sanders earned their populist credibility the hard way — being economic illiterates who have battled the establishment throughout their careers — Khanna is the archetypal careerist who has climbed his way up the ladder of wealth and power by sucking up to the powers that be, first through prestigious internships, campaigning for Obama, working an Obama administration "Deputy Assistant" job, clerking for a federal judge, moving to Silicon Valley to work with tech bros, and sucking up to the rich and powerful. 

It's your typical ladder-climbing for a striver, and it landed him in the enviable position of representing Silicon Valley in Congress, netting him $250 million to $300 million or more in personal wealth. 

His pre-teen children own, I kid you not, golf courses. 

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Typical of ladder-climbers, Khanna wants to become President of the United States because, well, where else is there to go? And since the far-left lane doesn't have a clear leader, with Bernie Sanders being an octogenarian, Mamdani being ineligible, and AOC having such a perfect and safe shot at the U.S. Senate, Khanna decided to stab his patrons in Silicon Valley in the back and go for the brass ring by pretending to be a revolutionary. 

Let me translate what Ro Khanna’s pitch is:

Remember the 2020 BLM riots’ death toll, firebombed buildings, looted stores and subsequent crime waves and business flight in multiple cities?

Yeah, we miss that! 

Let’s double down with higher taxes on productive capital, more redistribution, and reward youth protests so we can fund the cycle and invite more of it! 

We want the USA 🇺🇸 to be be MORE like France 🇫🇷 !!!!! 

Vote Dems!!!!!

From the high schools of France to the streets of Madrid to the universities of Tirana, young people are telling their governments the same thing: in an age of massive wealth inequality, they want a future they can believe in.

In France, students and teachers are asking for safe schools, enough teachers and smaller classes.

In Spain, for affordable rent and housing. 

In Albania, for good jobs and an end to corruption.

@JDVance says this is what happens when a nation lets in too many immigrants from the global south.

He is not just morally wrong, but misreading the moment.

The is what happens when nations let wealth and power accumulate in the hands of a few. 

This is what happens when young people lose hope in their future.

In America, let us listen to our young.

We need an economic and political transformation.

America's Next New Deal.

Don't get me wrong; Khanna has always had a soft spot for the economic left, but more along the lines of "high taxes and spread the wealth" than "seize the capital and burn it all down." But the populist pitch these days requires an actual thirst for blood, so Khanna has been courting the Hasan Piker, "decolonize the West," and "burn it all down" crowd. 

Khanna, once he endorsed the so-called "billionaire tax" in California — aimed squarely at the people who have fueled his political rise in Silicon Valley — was forced to go all-in on courting the Antifa left. I think he was genuinely surprised by the backlash from his former supporters, since the political road had few bumps for him until recently.

It's an odd fit, given that on any given day Khanna's bespoke suit, tie, and shoes have a combined net worth more than the average protester will likely ever have. 

So now we find Ro Khanna endorsing the incineration of France, and now other countries, and pointing to the lawlessness and destruction as proof that Western civilization must be remade in the image of the Global South. He denies that the problem is the Islamists who have invaded Europe, despite the fact that it is they and the communists who are leading the riots, and seems unbothered by the fact that these "protesters" are destroying irreplaceable cultural artifacts with glee.

No doubt many "moderates" wonder why a man of wealth and power, who entered Congress worth $25 million and has used remarkable stock-trading prowess to multiply that wealth by ten times or more, would embrace the most radical politics and people in the country, but they shouldn't. 

It turns out that when you see a revolution brewing, as Khanna apparently does, the best thing for a canny striver to do is get in front of it and try to lead. Either way, you are going to be facing that angry mob, and it's better to do so as the guy egging them on than the guy about to get his head chopped off. 

But Khanna has, I think, overestimated how many people are actually thirsty for blood and grossly overestimated his populist credibility. The radicals he wants to appeal to smell that he is a striver, and his appeal will be limited to the limousine liberals who love to talk "Revolution" in faculty lounges and cocktail parties. 

Endorsing riots won't turn Khanna into a tribune of the plebs. It's going to leave Khanna in a no-man's-land. The current craze for riots reminds one of the late 60s and 70s, and the backlash was harsh and cost the Democrats the White House for 12 years and birthed Clintonesque neoliberalism. 

Khanna bets this time will be different, and perhaps it will be. But if so, it won't be him leading the revolution. It will be AOC.