No, Ro, You Won’t Outflank AOC to Snag the Democratic Nomination for President

I’ve said a lot of stupid things over the years, and I do my best to acknowledge them when I discover that I am wrong. 

And if there is one category of things about which I am most often wrong, it’s granting people more grace than they deserve because I was not cynical enough about their motives. 

Don’t get me wrong: I am very cynical about institutions, but I still have a weakness that often causes me trouble, although I am loath to correct it nonetheless, and that is the Pollyanna-ish hope that the individual people I observe really might not be money- or power-hungry to the extent that they will throw ethics to the side in order to get ahead. 

I KNOW that there are good people out there, so I try to assume the best in people until they prove themselves unworthy. 

Man, am I often wrong on that!

Ro Khanna is a case in point. Back when he was just a liberal congressman and not a candidate for president, unannounced as he is, Khanna struck me as basically honest and decent, and merely too liberal for my tastes and more than a bit wrong on economics. 

It turns out that Khanna wasn’t thoughtful or decent, though; he was just cosplaying being a decent liberal in order to con his Silicon Valley constituents into supporting him. He seemed to be a business-friendly liberal who understood startup culture but didn’t understand that while tech companies can afford outrageous pay and benefits, small businesses can’t, and high taxes would kill them. 

Now that he has basically thrown his hat into the ring in the race for the Democrat Party nomination for president, he has turned into something unrecognizable: a Hasan Piker advocate who wants to destroy capitalism, all while hiding his own wealth and promoting ideas he most certainly knows will destroy the country. 

Ro Khanna just declared that ditching Hasan Piker would be a sign of “weakness.” So, yielding to the mob is a sign of strength? https://t.co/HH3c5EOyXX With the rise of antisemitism and attacks on our constitutional system, what is needed is courage, not cowering, in the face of…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) August 21, 2026

Huh. I really AM a bad judge of character. I retract all the kind things I have said about Ro, and abase myself before you. I really need to be more cynical about people. 

That Ro thinks that the issue with Piker is a matter of “strength” or “weakness” is a tell that his moral compass isn’t broken; it never existed. Even the most basic sense of decency would prevent any sane person- meaning non-sociopathic- from getting on board with Piker. 

It’s not that Piker says outrageous things; it’s that he thinks Mao Zedong got it right and that capitalist blood should run in the streets. 

Those may be popular sentiments on the Left right now, but so was witch-burning at one time, and people still think Anthony Fauci was a decent guy who made a mistake or two. Popularity, especially with people engaged in the 21st-century Cultural Revolution, is not a sign that something is right. 

I’m not going to go deeply into Ro’s corruption or Piker’s evil nature here; rather, I want to point out something different and ironic: it won’t work for Ro, both because he is so transparent about his shift in rhetoric and because he lacks something important that would even make it personally worthwhile for him to wallow in this moral sewer.

Ro has the charisma of a bureaucrat, and because he has chosen the “progressive” lane in his run for president, he can’t even do the Pete Buttigieg thing of appealing to the geeky wing of the Democrat Party. Buttigieg will retain the loyalty of that wing because he is the perfect avatar of their own self-image, enhanced by being a “respectable” and married gay man. He strokes the egos of those people, while Ro tossed out his own shot at challenging in that lane by becoming a flaming socialist. 

Ro wants to appeal to the revolutionary wing of the Party, which AOC and Bernie Sanders have locked down, and while Ro is working hard to gain their loyalty, AOC is busy trying to prove that she remains hip to the revolution but can work with the establishment. 

DONT BE WEIRD.

AOC doing a bloating check. pic.twitter.com/L6b8brAkbQ

— Winter (@LeftyWinter) August 20, 2026

AOC may repel you and me, but even we have a hard time looking away. She has charisma coming out of her belly button, which we just got to see, and is very relatable to the younger crowd, and apparently has the backing of a chunk of the establishment, particularly the Obama Bros. Even Nancy Pelosi is talking her up. 

Mark Halperin writes at The Free Press that he thinks AOC has a clear shot at grabbing the Democrat Party nomination for president, and I think he is right. While Ro has chosen to cosplay revolutionary, AOC is burnishing her brand and using her magnetism to great effect. 

AOC boasts three indispensable factors for a successful presidential race: national name recognition, the capacity to raise tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, and insatiable media interest. Many other Democrats are so daunted by these needs that they decline to run or drop out early when they fail to achieve them. Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom are two potential candidates who have these advantages as well, but almost no one else in the field has even a single one. AOC would arrive at the starting gate with all three assets already in hand.

And AOC has something more valuable than name recognition: She has a brand. Millions of Americans who could not recognize their own congressional representative know who AOC is. Millions who could not identify a single piece of legislation she has passed know roughly what she stands for. They know her attitude. They know her style. They know what side she is on. Presidential candidates spend tens of millions of dollars trying, and usually failing, to generate that kind of visibility.

An iconic face of the zeitgeisty progressive movement, a fundraising dynamo on a first-name basis not just with cable news hosts but with producers, network executives, hair and makeup folks, and popular influencers as well, AOC showcases other en vogue traits. She is a young outsider railing against the establishment. She is a master of the attention economy, a social media wizard with a keen sense of timing. She is bracingly gruff and tart, unafraid of conflict and controversy, and comfortable in the eye of the storm. She is widely considered gorgeous, with a sharp fashion flair. She possesses ineffable magnetism that catches attention; when she appears on any television or tablet, she compels viewers to turn up the volume to find out what she is saying.

AOC understands that modern politics is part ideology, part organization, and part show business, and she does not pretend to be offended by the performative superficialities of the profession. Most politicians say they hate the circus while making sure they are standing in the center ring. AOC genuinely enjoys the circus. She is soulful, sincere, winking, ironic, and a ham all at the same time.

Of course, a straight shot does not mean a sure shot. Grabbing the presidential nomination of a party is harder than making a 3-point shot from the other side of the court or making a hole-in-one. It happens, and though you are certain that SOMEBODY will wind up in that slot, predicting who until a decent way into the nominating process is almost a fool’s errand. 

Of course, some of us are paid to do it, so we do, and others like the sport of it, like those who place prop bets on who will win the coin toss at the beginning of a game. Anybody else should save their dignity and avoid speculation. Remember, Jimmy Carter won the nomination…nobody would have predicted THAT in 1975!

Jessica Tarlov is pushing the AOC rebrand hard: “I’ve done a 180 on AOC.”

“She left Woke 1 a long time ago.”

So we’ve already moved to the ‘AOC hasn’t been woke in years’ phase of the gaslighting campaign. History being rewritten at record pace here. https://t.co/AhIXo6H7k4 pic.twitter.com/OpCL6JfnxP

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 18, 2026

Still, AOC is most certainly a contender if she wants to be. What repels you and me is quite attractive to many people, just as Trump repels a huge chunk of the country. 

Ro will never be able to compete with that. Not in a million years. 

So as he grovels at the feet of Hasan Piker, thinking that he is building his own brand and reaching out to the ascendant socialists, he doesn’t grasp that the socialist movement is driven by a vibe, not ideas. He can’t appeal by mirroring what they say, and he can’t appeal to how they feel. 

So all that Ro has done is expose himself as a poseur with the ethics of a con man. I suppose I should be grateful, as it affords me another educational opportunity. 

Will I ever learn to be more cynical? If so, Ro will have helped. 

Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it’s spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there’s nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.

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