Nearly 2,400 arrested. A thousand police officers injured. A historic city hall deliberately set ablaze in Limoges. Shops looted from Bordeaux to Marseille. Over half a million people flooding French streets in demonstrations that devolved into arson, vandalism, and raw chaos. Americans watched the footage – burning barricades, masked rioters squaring off with police, centuries-old buildings reduced to smoldering shells – and felt something between horror and disbelief.

Most of us, anyway. One ambitious Democratic congressman watched the same footage and apparently felt something quite different: inspiration. While cities smoldered, he was already workshopping his pitch to the American electorate.

From Fox News:

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a potential 2028 presidential contender, drew criticism from across the political spectrum after pointing to the riots in France as a warning about wealth inequality and urging the U.S. to “listen to our young.”

“This is what happens when the nations let wealth and power accumulate in the hands of a few,” Khanna wrote in a post to X on Sunday evening.

So now we know who said it. The real question is whether he has any business saying it at all.

A curious champion of the little guy

Ro Khanna represents California’s 17th Congressional District – ground zero for Silicon Valley. His constituents work at Apple, Google, and some of the most powerful corporations on the planet. The median home in his district costs more than most Americans will earn in a decade. Cozy place to crusade against concentrated wealth.

And that’s the problem. The man railing against “wealth and power accumulating in the hands of a few” has built his entire political career with the backing of tech oligarchs who practically invented that model. He didn’t name his own donors. He didn’t propose reining in Silicon Valley’s stranglehold on the American economy. He pointed at burning Parisian storefronts and declared, “We need a New Deal” – presumably one funded by the same billionaire class he claims to oppose.

Hypocrisy isn’t a strong enough word. This is performance art.

Sympathize first, condemn later

Here’s what’s telling. Khanna’s “unequivocal” condemnation of the violence didn’t come first. It came after the backlash piled up. His gut reaction was to glorify the moment, not grieve it.

Even Democrats saw right through it. Gun activist Shannon Watts – no conservative, mind you – fired back: “If you’re a member of Congress who condemned the January 6 insurrection, you don’t get to excuse riots in France as a ‘cry for help.'” Ouch. Legal analyst Jonathan Turley was blunter still, warning that Khanna “has long sought to ride the rage wave to power.” Turley also offered a history lesson free of charge: the French Revolution didn’t exactly reward establishment figures who pandered to the mob.

The 2028 audition nobody asked for

This wasn’t commentary. It was a campaign rollout. Khanna went out of his way to attack Vice President Vance by name, calling him “morally wrong” for linking French unrest to immigration policy. His phrase “America’s Next New Deal” isn’t a policy framework – it’s a bumper sticker for a presidential bid built on promising massive government expansion to people already drowning in government.

Spencer Pratt, the former Los Angeles mayoral candidate, dispensed with the pleasantries entirely: “These commies lie as easily as they breathe.”

Blunt? Sure. But when a congressman representing the wealthiest zip codes in America lectures working families about inequality – while waxing poetic about foreign riots he watched from a leather chair in Washington – the polite descriptors don’t really apply anymore.

The word is “hypocrite.” Plain and simple.

Americans old enough to remember what the original New Deal actually cost this country – in debt, in dependency, in the quiet expansion of government into every corner of daily life – recognize the sales pitch. The packaging is glossier now. The product hasn’t changed. And the salesman? He doesn’t believe a single word of it.

Key Takeaways

• Khanna exploited France’s violent riots to launch a thinly veiled 2028 presidential campaign pitch.
• A Silicon Valley congressman bankrolled by Big Tech decrying “wealth concentration” is textbook hypocrisy.
• Even fellow Democrats condemned his failure to lead with a denunciation of violence.
• “America’s Next New Deal” is recycled progressive rhetoric wrapped in populist packaging.

Sources: Fox News