Ro Khanna came to Congress in 2017 as a rich man supported by even richer men. As Silicon Valley’s representative in the House of Representatives, Khanna balanced the need to make the right noises about progressive social values while respecting the capitalist system that made him and many of his patrons so wealthy.

He was pretty good at it, too. In a 2023 New York Times Magazine interview, Khanna pitched his “progressive capitalism” as the perfect synthesis of these northern California beliefs. “I’m for taxing the rich more, but there has to be a focus on economic production,” he said. “On how do we grow the pie? Not just redistribution, but giving more people the opportunity to create wealth.”

This sort of techno-optimism was in vogue then, and Khanna positioned himself as its most thoughtful and serious acolyte. But times changed, vibes shifted, and Khanna changed with them. Over the weekend, the Congressman visited the West Bank as part of a not-so-subtle pitch to the progressive Left. He claimed that he was detained by Israeli settlers, who were assisted by Israeli soldiers — a claim the IDF disputes. Either way, he ended up in the headlines, continuing to tease a 2028 presidential run that would, he says, have Palestinian rights as a key focus.

What explains this hard pivot to the Left? One reason is that the moguls of Silicon Valley welcomed the Trump restoration in 2024 — or at least declined to become full-fledged members of the Resistance as they had been eight years earlier. Woke was dead, MAGA was back, and accommodations were made.

That left “progressive capitalists” like Khanna out on a limb. Now, the Democratic grassroots want fire! Anger! Energy! So Khanna is going to give it to them. He was among the first and the most vocal national Democrats to lend his support to Graham Platner in Maine. What better way for a thoughtful moderate to show his far-Left bona fides than to get behind a thoughtless progressive?

That path to progressive adulation fell flat as a credible rape allegation finally swept the populist Platner out of the race and back to his oyster farm. But Khanna was not daunted: the quickest way to thrill the radical Left was to get arrested at a protest or to turn against Israel. Khanna, with a capitalist’s zeal for efficiency, did both at once.

Khanna also teamed up with Republican gadfly Thomas Massie of Kentucky to press the case for a fuller, quicker, less redacted release of the Epstein files — a topic in which he’d never shown much interest before Trump took office. Again, he was repaid with attention from reporters.

Would the well-heeled moderate Khanna of 2023 recognize the wild-eyed radical of 2026 who replaced him? Will 2028 primary voters be able to understand his rapid shift? It’s easy to grab the headlines with a publicity stunt, but Khanna’s 2028 rivals will surely point out the contradictions.

Kamala Harris is a cautionary tale. In 2024, the then Vice President abruptly dropped many of her more radical positions from her failed 2020 presidential campaign — including, most famously, her boast that she secured the right for inmates in the California penal system to have sex changes at taxpayer expense. Her campaign noted that she “wasn’t running on that” this time, but the rapid change in principles — without explanation for why she changed her mind — left voters with the impression of a candidate with no real beliefs.

Khanna will face the same issue running from center to Left as Harris faced running from Left to center. The Democratic primary voters of 2028 may crave a firebrand progressive, but they will surely have plenty of progressives with longstanding credentials in the race. At a time when voters are looking for sincerity, Khanna’s fair-weather radicalism will not get the job done.