Chris Rabb, a five-term Pennsylvania state legislator who just won the Democratic primary for one of the safest blue seats in the country, once wrote that corporate CEOs "should fry" and called for the death penalty to be "administered more frequently and swiftly than ever" against executives he compared to gang leaders. The 2005 blog post, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, surfaced as Rabb prepares to carry endorsements from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and other prominent Democrats into a general election he is heavily favored to win.
Rabb's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The district, Pennsylvania's Third, centered on Philadelphia, is described as one of the most Democratic in the nation. Rabb defeated the establishment candidate, the son of former Philadelphia Mayor John Street, in the primary. If he wins in November, he will arrive in Washington with a paper trail that reads less like a policy platform and more like a revenge fantasy aimed at the private sector, and with a roster of high-profile backers who apparently saw nothing disqualifying in it.
The blog post appeared on Afro-Netizen, a website Rabb founded. Citing a report that 300 CEOs had been paid salaries and bonuses totaling $12 billion, Rabb wrote that he had reversed his previous opposition to capital punishment.
"I've changed my previous stance in opposition to the death penalty and now think that it should be administered more frequently and swiftly than ever."
He did not stop there. Rabb compared corporate executives to the Crips and Bloods, arguing that CEO-led organizations were worse:
"The gangs some of the above culprits lead are far more devastating to a much broader and larger group of Americans than the Crips or Bloods ever will be. So, they've got [sic] be taken down on behalf of hard-working, tax-paying American families."
The post's conclusion was blunt: CEOs "should fry."
The Free Beacon's reporting does not indicate whether Rabb has since walked back those statements. His current position on the death penalty is not addressed. What is clear is that the remarks did not prevent some of the Democratic Party's most visible members from lining up behind him.
Rabb secured endorsements from Ocasio-Cortez, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Tlaib, Omar, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and California Representative Ro Khanna, described as a 2028 presidential hopeful. That is a broad slice of the party's progressive wing, from Squad members to a sitting senator.
AOC's willingness to attach her name to candidates with incendiary records is not new. She has been barnstorming the country in what many observers read as groundwork for a future presidential bid. Endorsing a candidate who once advocated executing business executives raises an obvious question about what, if anything, falls outside the boundaries of acceptable rhetoric in the modern Democratic Party.
Rabb also campaigned alongside Hasan Piker, the social media influencer who comes from a wealthy Turkish family and reportedly purchased a $2.7 million home in Beverly Hills in 2020. Piker is believed to make millions of dollars a year from his influencer business. He has praised Hezbollah and stated that "America deserved 9/11."
On the subject of corporate America, Piker declared himself "pro stealing from big corporations" because, in his telling, companies "steal quite a bit more from their own workers." He also described Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO who was allegedly murdered by Luigi Mangione, as guilty of "social murder."
Rabb was direct about the partnership. "I'm going to find common cause with Hasan Piker," he said.
Rabb's old blog post lands in a political climate where celebrating violence against corporate executives has become disturbingly fashionable in certain left-wing circles. Last week, three women holding official press credentials stood outside a Philadelphia courthouse during a Luigi Mangione legal hearing and told reporters that Thompson had killed more Americans than Osama bin Laden, deserved to die, and that his children would be better off without him.
That is the environment in which a candidate who wrote that CEOs "should fry" now stands on the threshold of Congress. The rhetoric is no longer confined to anonymous blog posts or fringe comment sections. It is being endorsed, funded, and mainstreamed by elected officials.
The broader pattern is hard to miss. DSA-backed candidates have swept primaries across multiple states, and the progressive faction's tolerance for extreme language has grown in proportion to its electoral success.
Rabb's candidacy also drew support from American Priorities, described as an anti-Israel super PAC that spent $400,000 on advertisements backing him. The PAC's donor list raises its own questions.
Mohammad Waqas, CEO of Showcase Commerce, gave $1 million. Omer Hasan, a Silicon Valley executive, gave another $1 million. Hussein Mahrouq, a Texas-based car dealer, contributed $400,000. Mahrouq's companies were charged in 2011 by then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott with falsifying emissions test records for used cars sold at his dealerships.
That a candidate running on populist outrage against corporate greed accepted the backing of a super PAC funded by millionaire executives, one of whom faced state charges for consumer fraud, is the kind of contradiction that would dominate a news cycle if the candidate had an R next to his name.
The CEO death-penalty rhetoric is not the only item in Rabb's file. He has accused Israel of "genocide" in Gaza and supports the Palestinian right of return. He recently called to "free" Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, who was shot and killed on a Philadelphia street corner in 1981.
Ocasio-Cortez, for her part, has shown a selective approach to endorsements even within her own political circle. She recently declined to endorse her own former chief of staff in a competitive race, yet found no difficulty lending her name to Rabb.
The implication is plain enough. Within the progressive wing, calling for the execution of corporate executives is not a liability. Demanding freedom for a cop killer is not a liability. Campaigning with an influencer who said America deserved the September 11 attacks is not a liability. These are credentials.
Rabb's district is deep blue, and barring an extraordinary upset, he will be seated in the next Congress. His endorsers, including AOC, who has openly mused about ambitions beyond even the presidency, will share a caucus with him and face no pressure to explain why they boosted a candidate with this record.
The Free Beacon noted that Rabb's campaign did not respond to its inquiry. None of his endorsers are quoted addressing his 2005 statements. No reporter appears to have pressed AOC, Tlaib, Omar, Van Hollen, or Khanna on whether they were aware of the blog post before lending their names.
That silence is its own kind of answer. When the political cost of extremism is zero, extremism becomes strategy.
Voters in Pennsylvania's Third District will get the representative their primary chose. The rest of the country gets to watch a man who called for executing American business leaders walk into the House chamber with the full blessing of the Democratic Party's rising stars, and wonder what, exactly, it would take for any of them to say no.
