Ro Khanna on America’s Two Biggest Challenges Post-Capitol Riot

America needs “leadership that looks for finding commonalities of Americans with great differences”, he said.

America is “the most diverse we’ve ever been in our nation’s history”, Khanna said, highlighting the need to focus on economic and cultural challenges faced by Americans.

(File Photo credit: Khanna Campaign/IANS)

Ro Khanna, a third-term progressive Democrat in the House of Representatives, spoke of two big challenges faced by the American democracy in the aftermath of the US Capitol Riot.

In a conversation with Business Insider, the Indian-American lawmaker said,

“I think there’re two challenges for the country. The challenge of economically-left behind places and people where you don’t have economic wealth generation, without basic healthcare, without basic housing.”

“And then you have the deeper question, and that is the cultural challenge,” he added, stating that present-day America is "the most diverse we’ve ever been in our nation’s history – it’s easy to conceive of a nation on philosophical principles if there is also a cultural similarity,”

“To conceive of a nation on philosophical principles, of a commitment to our constitution, when you have such incredible racial diversity, such incredible religious diversity and the racial history we do, is a very, very difficult project,” Khanna said.

“We need a bold economic vision, but we need to couple that with leadership that looks for finding commonalities of Americans with great differences,” he added.

Speaking of establishing the world's first "multiracial, multiethnic democracy", Khanna argued that the US Congress "need(s) to begin a dialogue with each other in ways that lowers the volume of the screaming on cable news and looks for ways to respect Americans and understand their anxieties, understand their perspectives, and find some common fabric for this country".

In light of Trump's ban, he also stressed the "need to rethink the role that social media has had in encouraging diversion realities and how we try to structure and design social media so that there are common sources of information.”