The congressman pushing Democrats to go Maga and recruit Musk

Telegraph

11 hours ago

The Democrats need to go Maga.
Well, 'blue Maga', according to a progressive California congressman who has entered the battle for the soul of the beleaguered party.
Ro Khanna is a long way from a conventional politician.
He might be the representative for one of the country's wealthiest districts, which is home to Silicon Valley, but he's also a native Pennsylvanian who wants to revive blue-collar manufacturing.
An ally of Bernie Sanders, his Left-wing credentials are solid, but he believes his party has become entrapped by purity tests and turned too sanctimonious, lecturing and elitist.
And he thinks the solution to both his party and the country's woes is another seeming contradiction: a Democrat version of Donald Trump's 'Make America Great Again' movement, which he calls 'blue Maga'.
'I think the reason why the identification with Maga is so strong is because it's an identity of respect that was for people who didn't have that respect,' Mr Khanna told The Telegraph.
'Donald Trump saw that and he spoke to that.'
Since suffering a series of shattering election defeats in November, including Mr Trump's return to the White House, Democrats have been forced to confront the reality that there is something he grasps about America that they don't.
Most of them aren't quite sure what, but that hasn't stopped a crowded field of presidential hopefuls from emerging, many of them short on vision but long on ambition.
Mr Khanna is different, and in an interview with The Telegraph sketched out how a 'blue Maga' vision – though he seems to be quietly retiring that label in favour of 'economic patriotism' – would restore the US's rust belt and with it his party's political prospects.
The road to winning back the White House and Congress, he believes, runs through left-behind ex-manufacturing towns like Lorain in Ohio and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.
'We had a period of globalisation and automation that allowed wealth to pile up in districts like mine in Silicon Valley, while hollowing out factory towns across this country,' he said.
'These were the towns that built the steel that won us our freedom in World War Two… this is not the way to build a common country, to have places hollowed out with declining economic prospects for young people and other parts of the country prospering like never before.'
Now, Mr Khanna argues, the federal government needs to finance factories and steel mills, set up trade schools, and invest in other sectors like universities and hospitals to 'reindustrialise this country'.
Democrats also need to be prepared to issue more than a few mea culpas, like acknowledging Nafta – a trade deal negotiated by a Republican president, signed into law by a Democrat, and eventually replaced by Mr Trump – was a 'mistake'.
'The biggest mistake we recognise is the total abandonment of these blue-collar communities for decades, where people were just told to move, suck it up, go get some other kind of job,' Mr Khanna said.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the former president and vice-president, also made 'blunders' by failing to get a grip on illegal crossings of the US border.
And Democrats have gone from rebelling against the establishment to a 'sanctimonious party' that is 'lecturing folks and cancelling folks if they don't meet all our tests', Mr Khanna said.
'That's fine if you want to revel in your own moral superiority, but it's not a way to build a governing majority or to win an election, and I don't think it's the way to bring the country together.'
While congressional Democrats have shied away from conspicuous acts of 'resistance' to Mr Trump, there are signs the president is far from unassailable.
Perhaps the clearest so far was the disintegration in his relationship with Elon Musk, the former 'first buddy', with the breakdown played out, post by post, on social media on Thursday.
Just months after the Tesla billionaire spent close to $300 million (£222 million) on his re-election campaign, Mr Trump claimed he suffered from 'Trump derangement syndrome', had 'lost his mind', and suggested stripping him of government contracts worth 'billions'.
Mr Musk, for his part, claimed the president would cause a recession, should be impeached, and was named in government documents about Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and paedophile.
Democrats stayed quiet and watched it play out.
Now, Mr Khanna believes his party needs to seize the opportunity and make overtures to Mr Musk – something that has prompted a backlash from many of its Left-wingers.
'To the extent we can have him come to our side on any position, that's only an advantage. He has a couple of hundred million followers online,' he said, suggesting the tech boss, whom he has known for more than a decade, would speak out on issues like attacks on universities.
'Blue Maga', though, should be wary of the capricious billionaire.
'Anyone who thinks they're going to have him on their side for perpetuity is going to get burned in the way that Donald Trump was,' Mr Khanna said.
On Saturday, Mr Trump warned his former friend would face 'very serious consequences' if he switched his allegiance and tried to unseat Republican candidates.
Steve Bannon, the 71-year-old savant of the Maga movement, who served in Mr Trump's White House before becoming one of its many casualties, has frequently praised Mr Khanna.
As a rule, Mr Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker turned Right-wing rabble rouser, isn't a fan of any Democrats, much less those from California.
But he recognises a fellow 'economic populist' and has even accused him of 'ripping off' his own policies.
Does Mr Bannon's endorsement suggest Mr Khanna is on to something, or is the support from the bête noire of the Democrats, not to mention quite a few Republicans, a bridge too far?
It's a 'novel' position to be in, Mr Khanna conceded, before slipping away from the subject. But he agreed that the Democrats need to be more 'populist' as well as – slipping into Silicon Valley-speak for a moment – 'solutionist'.
Mr Bannon also sees a political kinship in John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania senator, whose former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, is attempting to steer the party towards populist positions.
Mr Jentleson has set up a think tank, called 'Searchlight', which intends to aid the Democrats in casting off the ideological baggage and purity tests that have held the party hostage, according to Politico, the news website.
The party has been burned by that experience all too recently, when Ms Harris, having backed taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners in the 2020 primaries, was criticised for that stance in last year's election in a brutally effective attack ad.
Recent history may not be encouraging for the party, but Mr Khanna insisted he is 'hopeful' the Democrats can reinvent themselves.
'This is a profession where people have to do practical things like raise money and ask for votes – and coming off as holier than thou, I think, is deeply off-putting to voters,' he said. 'Most people in politics aren't Martin Luther King or Gandhi.'
'Blue Maga' is unlikely to be adorning the caps of grassroots supporters any time soon, and party bigwigs probably don't look favourably on its ideas. But the worst the Democrats can do is more of the same.