“The government often fails to deliver on the promises we say it should deliver on,” Khanna said. In the CHIPS Act, which he co-authored, “funding was allocated for rural broadband, but we don’t have a lot of evidence that it’s actually being dispersed and working.” Joe Biden’s inflation-cutting bill includes provisions for U.S. industry Significant investment has been made, but many of the promised factories have yet to be built.
He said the government should select a few cities as model programs: “Pick a community like Johnstown, Pa., or Galesburg, Ill., or Milwaukee, Wis., and say, Here’s what happened, here’s what we did in this community a year later, here’s how it turned around.He believes Democrats have lost the ability to tell a coherent story about how they can improve people’s lives.
Of course, Khanna isn’t the only one who thinks progressives have squandered the public trust by failing to govern effectively. My colleague Ezra Klein has made similar criticisms many times. But Khanna also made a broader argument that Democrats have failed to craft a reassuring or exciting vision for the future.
“I think that’s our challenge, to push back against President Trump-Musk-Vance, who are trying to get a patina on the future and tie it to deregulation and Texas,” he said. .
“What we have to do is say we own the future, we understand technology, and we have a better vision for how technology will help your families, your communities and how we will regulate technology,” Khanna continued.
