#Kat Abughazaleh

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Tessa Stuart at Rolling Stone:

Illinois 9th District has only been represented by two people since 1965, and there hasn’t been a competitive primary since the race Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, the district’s current representative, won in November 1998. “I wouldn’t be born for another four months,” deadpans Kat Abughazaleh, the TikTok-famous political commentator now running to represent the district.  Abughazaleh is transparent about the fact that she is not what anyone thinks of as shoe-in for Congress: a 26-year-old narcoleptic freelance social media creator who doesn’t live in the district and has only lived in the state for less than a year, challenging a Democratic Party leader who has represented this part of Illinois for more than a quarter of a century.  That’s kind of the point: She is a normal person — with a rental lease she can’t break before it’s up, financial pressure bearing down on her, and prescription medication that she needs to function properly and that has been challenging to obtain since Elon Musk went after her employer, and she and many of her colleagues were laid off.  And when she looks to Congress, not only does she not see enough people who are concerned with the practical day-to-day challenges she and so many of the people she knows are struggling with — the costs of housing, health care, groceries, transportation — she also doesn’t see anyone confronting with any level of seriousness the peril of our current moment, two months into Donald Trump’s second term.  “We are in an emergency,” Abughazaleh says. “Right now, the answer to authoritarianism isn’t to be quiet. It’s not matching pink outfits at a state address. It’s not throwing trans people under the bus. It’s not refusing to look at the party at all and see where it could be better. The answer is to very publicly, very loudly, very boldly, stand up. The only way to fight fascism, and this has been proven over and over and over again, is loudly, proudly, and every single day.”

Abughazaleh may be young, but she is a wildly successful, incisive communicator who is stepping up at a time when it is clear that the party is in desperate need of new messengers. And she is popular on the social media platforms where sitting Democrats’ posts are continually flopping, ridiculed for their tone deafness.  The day after the 2024 presidential election, Abughazaleh thought she would wake up with an irrepressible urge to flee the country. Instead, she says, it was the opposite: “I woke up and thought, ‘You’re gonna have to drag me out by my dead body’ … I just got really angry, and I thought about running at that moment, but I was like, ‘No, I’m sure Democrats will do something,’ and then they haven’t — and it’s just been not only disappointing, but scary to watch.” Schakowsky, currently representing the district, “has had a pretty great track record on her voting,” Abughazaleh admits. But she is also 80 years old, and hasn’t had a competitive primary in decades. “She’s been a good congresswoman, but I want to be better.”

[...] Abughazaleh was born in Texas and raised as a Republican — really Republican. Her maternal grandmother, Taffy Goldsmith, was such a legendary GOP operative that when she died, the flag at Texas state capitol was flown at half mast. (Abughazaleh inherited the mink coat Goldsmith wore to Nixon’s inauguration.) Her father is a Palestinian immigrant. Both her parents, she says, were Reagan Republicans whose relationship with the party has ruptured since Trump took it over. Abughazaleh’s own political views took shape at college in Washington, D.C. She studied at George Washington University, and went to work at Media Matters after graduation, where she was employed until 2024, after Musk sued the organization, and she and 11 others got laid off.  The day the news broke, Musk tweeted “Karma is real” and his coterie of sycophants, including Libs of TikTok, piled on. Abughazaleh says it was one of the worst days of her life. The saga didn’t end there, either — Abughazaleh was deposed as part of Musk’s lawsuit against Media Matters, questioned on video for seven hours. (The lawsuit is ongoing.) After she was laid off from Media Matters, Abughazaleh did freelance video production with Mother Jones and Zeteo, but she is stepping away from work with both outlets during her campaign. “It’s terrifying… I don’t have health insurance, I have no income coming in, and am using GoodRx like my life depends on it — because it kind of does.” 

Progressive social media influencer and former MMFA journalist Kat Abughazaleh (Kat Abu) is running for a US House seat in #IL09, currently occupied by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D).

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kat Abughazaleh (@kabughazaleh)

Fuck yeah! 👍 Run, Kat — run! Kat Abughazaleh running for Congress

🐱🇺🇸🗳️

[thedyf]

The future is now, old man.

[readandwriteclub]

The 2026 Midterms Will Be Rigged | Vaush Clip

[tomorrowusa]

There's nothing weird about Democrats calling Republican policies and proposals "weird". It's basically just telling it like it is.

On IVF and abortion, Republicans assert that fundamentalist officials (overwhelmingly male) have the right to dictate what women are able to do with their bodies. That's not just weird but also creepy and pervy.

Despite the fact that the words Jesus and Christian are nowhere in the US Constitution or Declaration of Independence, the MAGA crowd wants the US to be governed as a Christian theocracy – the United States of Gilead or something like that. That's certainly weird.

These far right obsessives think the United States should be aligned with dictators and war criminals instead of our traditional allies in liberal democracies. That's not just weird but puts us on the wrong side of history.

If anybody objects to you calling Republicans "weird", spell out some of the Trump-Vance policies and explain that the word fits perfectly.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lauren Egan at The Bulwark:

Democrats are eager for a younger generation of leaders. But not everyone is ready to let go of the old guard. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY KNOWS that it has an age problem—that voters are hungry for younger leadership with more verve and interest in picking fights with Donald Trump. But as primary campaigns ramp up, opposing factions of the party are grappling with how to welcome fresh faces without forcing out older ones. Although there’s widespread recognition that new and younger voices could help the party regroup from its 2024 losses, progressive Democrats are debating whether some older members of Congress who have strong legislative and ideological records should be spared primary challenges. “Just because somebody is not currently in Congress does not mean that they are amazingly great people who’re going to do a great job,” said Alex Lawson, the executive director of Social Security Works. There are, he continued, “a lot of people who are not in Congress who are shittier than the people who are currently in Congress. This is not a situation where you say, ‘If they’re over the age of 70 then get rid of them! Throw them off the island, to the cliffs they go, Midsommar-style.’ That’s just fucking stupid.” The debate spilled out into public view last week when David Hogg, the survivor of the 2018 Parkland school shooting who was recently elected as one of the four vice chairs of the Democratic National Committee, announced he would spend $20 million in the 2026 midterm primaries through the group Leaders We Deserve, of which he is president, to try to oust incumbent Democrats in safe blue districts. Hogg said he would not target 85-year-old Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) or 80-year-old Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)—both of whom are already facing primary challenges. The move pissed off DNC members (the committee typically does not get involved in primaries) and frustrated the old guard in the party who felt those resources could be better spent defending vulnerable Democrats or boosting downballot candidates. Yet at the same time, Hogg’s announcement that he’d stay away from Pelosi’s and Schakowsky’s races frustrated some progressives who felt that he was pulling punches and shying away from a much-needed conversation about age.

“We know it gets complicated. Bernie [Sanders] is one of most forward-thinking people in the party and he’s 83. Pelosi is one of the most effective people in the party and she’s 85. But you have to do some succession planning,” said a progressive Democratic strategist. “Dems have to be careful here not to miss the forest for the trees. It’s great that you have experienced people who are there to guide the party through tough times. But if you’ve been in Congress for 45 years, what are you doing?” “People that age die,” the strategist added. “You have to think about the job a little bit differently when the stakes are this high.” Some Democrats who spoke with The Bulwark worry that the party has forgotten the lesson learned from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s untimely death, and argued that it’s a dangerous business to treat age as a non-issue even among party luminaries. Two House Democrats died last month (70-year-old Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas and 77-year-old Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona), allowing Republicans to advance Trump’s budget agenda.

[...] Although Hogg took some heat last week from more established party figures, the party’s tolerance for primary challengers has dramatically shifted compared to Trump’s first presidency. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blacklisted consultants or political groups that worked for primary challengers in the 2018 midterms—such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley—in an effort to protect incumbents in future races. (The ban was lifted in 2021.) This time around, the level of dissatisfaction among Democratic voters is too hard to ignore. The party has largely accepted that, to some degree, primary challenges in the midterms cannot be avoided. Some prominent Democrats, such as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, have already compared the moment to the GOP’s Tea Party movement in 2010. Kat Abughazaleh, who is challenging Schakowsky for the Democratic nomination, told The Bulwark that she’s been clear since launching her campaign that she thinks Schakowsky has been a “great leader.” But the age question is too big to ignore.

DNC Vice-Chair David Hogg’s efforts to primary out older Democrats is part of an effort to get new blood elected, but not everyone in the party apparatus is thrilled with it.

[sponsored-deactivated20210106]

"Strength And Compassion": Kat Abughazaleh's Vision For The Democratic Party

[hug-your-face]

(Wired article from Jan 30)

This is way interesting analysis. Note to self: names to watch are Martin, Shakir, Wikler.

Dr. Phil filming a ride-along with ICE agents, interviewing apparent migrants, and making it look like an episode of Cops feels like something I’d dream up after taking a little too much melatonin and scrolling TikTok before bed.

But instead, the “contentification” of President Donald Trump’s policy is indeed the logical next step for a team that won the election with the help of influencers and content creators. Following suit, Trump’s cabinet has basically created the White House’s own cinematic universe.

Only a few days after her confirmation, Kristi Noem, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security secretary, was filmed alongside Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducting an operation. “I’m here in New York City,” Noem told the camera in a vertical video, wearing a bulletproof vest and with a fresh blowout. “We’re getting these dirtbags off these streets.”

Back in December, I wrote that we should not only expect the government to continue its work with influencers but also to become influencers themselves. This week it became clear that this is what the Trump administration has been planning to do with its cabinet leaders all along. They’re not just leading the government, they’re making content while doing it.

Look at who Trump nominated for cabinet positions. Nearly across the board, these nominees have experience playing it up for the camera. Noem is a MAGA media veteran, often appearing on networks like Newsmax to discuss topics of the day. Linda McMahon, wife to former WWE CEO Vince McMahon, has gotten in the wrestling ring a time or two herself. Over the course of his presidential campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. couldn’t get enough of the media, appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast and anywhere else that would have him. And of course, Pete Hegseth is a former Fox News host. On Tuesday, CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter wrote that these ICE raids were crafted with television and the internet in mind.

Before his first week in office, Trump had played casting director. Now, we’re getting the pilot episodes.

Still, it’s not like all that much has changed in terms of digital infrastructure at these agencies. It might just be that the GOP is doing it better—and giving their audience what it wants. Even under the Biden administration, DHS and ICE organized ride-alongs with the media, especially with MAGA-friendly broadcasters like Fox News. The agencies would often post photos of enforcement officers cuffing alleged migrants on platforms like X as well. Most of the multimedia staffers are career employees with few slots for political appointees, according to a source familiar with DHS’s public affairs office.

But as Stelter wrote yesterday, the tone of the content is different. And that’s likely a result of the onscreen talent. You’re going to get an entirely different product when working with media veterans like Dr. Phil and Noem. The only Biden cabinet secretary that could rival those two was Pete Buttigieg.

While all of this is happening, the Democrats are waiting to elect a new director before they can even think about casting. On Saturday, Democrats will be voting on their next party chair. There are nearly a dozen people running to fill the spot, but the election is mainly seen as a two-man race between Wisconsin party chair Ben Wikler and Ken Martin, a DNC vice chair.

Wikler, Martin, and many other candidates appeared on a virtual forum Tuesday night specifically focused on the DNC’s future in tech and media. For about an hour, they were asked how they would revamp the party’s data infrastructure and tackle new media. Many of them appeared anxious to take it on.

When I first started covering this beat, Wikler was constantly pitched to me as an example of a Democratic party official who was doing digital the right way. I spoke with him in December, where he reinforced that Democrats needed to respond to the changing media environment quickly if they planned to win elections in the near future. On Tuesday night, Wikler went on to suggest that the DNC create its own innovation lab focused on keeping up with their opposition.

“You need to build a culture of curiosity, innovation, experimentation, and iteration, knowing that many things won’t work,” Wikler said Tuesday night. “So you need to try even more things.”

Martin wants to do something similar by building an “Information War Room” more focused on fighting misinformation.

“That Information War Room will become the hub for better, ongoing, constant digital communications with real-time analytics and also with social listening, so we understand where the misinformation and disinformation is being pumped out, and as part of that, we need to recruit trusted messengers, influencers, creators, and their networks to communicate over the long haul,” Martin said.

That war room already exists on the right. The Trump campaign hosted influencers for special debate war rooms, and the same person who ran the Trump campaign’s war room has now been appointed “war room director” for the White House.

Faiz Shakir, a former Bernie Sanders adviser and the executive director of More Perfect Union, is also running for DNC chair, and he sees things differently. Instead of simply partnering with creators, he envisions a DNC that acts as its own media network. “You don't just sprinkle fairy dust on a Mobilize link or YouTube link,” he said. “We should be raising money right now for the national Meals on Wheels Association, Head Start for America, just raise money for them and build engagement. Do actions on the ground with people, send videographers. This is what I'm doing right now at More Perfect Union.”

On Saturday, Democrats will choose who they want leading the party and taking on what will likely be a massive digital rebrand. During Tuesday’s forum, many of the candidates promised to move past the “boom-and-bust” periods of investing in digital and then stripping programs down to the bones between election cycles.

But it’s hard to imagine they’ll be able to keep up. Republicans have invested in this for years, and Trump has clearly brought it all to the White House. Plus, season two has just begun.

[thedyf]

Kat has only supported trans rights since 2020 and now she's implying the woman who helped found the congressional lgbt+ equality caucus and who actually has a trans grandson who's life be ruined if she stops fighting cares less about trans people than Kat?

LMFAO

Usually I ignore these, but I'll bite. Please show me some information or an interview to support your claim if you're going to imply that someone is doing something, citation is needed. I would consider this a serious topic and nothing to laugh about honestly, especially if you care about it as much as you seem to since you went out of your way to send me an anonymous ask when I realistically just posted it to share information (because I am black and disabled and I post things or information that would or may positively effect my life because of/inspite of that) and not necessarily exhalt anyone as anything in particular.

[schraubd]

What Will Be the Democratic Party's Anti-Incumbent Keyes Number?

Way back in 2005 (20 years ago(!)) the blogosphere discovered the "Crazification Factor" of 27% -- the baseline percentage of Americans who will take an action for reasons that defy any rational explanation whatsoever. The background came in a discussion of President George W. Bush's cratering approval numbers, and a query as to how low they might go, and it's still fun to read to this day: John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is -- Tyrone: 27%. John: ... you said that immediately, and with some authority. Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population. For this reason, the "Crazification Factor" is also known as the "Keyes Number". And though undoubtedly the product of significant cherry-picking, it was fun in the years that followed to find other crazy propositions that clustered around 27% support. I was thinking about this nugget of blogger history upon reading about an announced primary challenge against incumbent Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) by progressive influencer Kat Abughazaleh. The announced basis for the challenge is general discontent with Democratic leadership and the "gerontocracy" not being aggressive enough in fighting the Trump administration. But the problem is that nobody -- not even Abughazaleh -- can point to any problems on that front for Schakowsky, specifically. Abughazaleh herself agrees that Schakowsky has been a good Democrat! Beyond that, Abughazaleh has never held elected office, has no significant political experience, is from out-of-state (she voted in DC last election), and doesn't live in Schakowsky's district. In terms of traditional bases of support, Abughazaleh has literally nothing going for her other than "I am not a long-standing incumbent Democrat." To be clear, I'm not saying one would have to be crazy to vote for Abughazaleh. Rather, what made the Keyes Factor notable was that the Keyes/Obama race helpfully isolated out every possible reason one might vote for a candidate aside from "I'm attracted to the crazy." Likewise, I'm pointing out that if Abughazaleh does end up facing off against Schakowsky (and the latter hasn't decided if she's seeking reelection), any support the latter gets will be purely, 100% attributable to people voting entirely on the basis of generalized anti-incumbent/anti-established Democrat rage, untethered either to any particular vices of the incumbent or any particular virtues of the challenger. It will, in other words, provide a useful baseline for seeing how powerful this sentiment is amongst the Democratic electorate, because it is a race that is uniquely free of other confounding variables.  This race will not be like George Latimer beating Jamaal Bowman (an especially well-established challenger taking out a somewhat wounded incumbent, with clear ideological differences), or AOC beating Joe Crowley (a uniquely talented challenger ousting an incumbent asleep at the wheel). Here, the only impetus that might push a voter to pick Abughazaleh over Schakowsky is "Schakowsky is an old, long-tenured incumbent, and I don't like that." That's clearly a sentiment that has no small amount of force amongst Democrats right now -- but is it enough to actually win a race? I don't think it is. My guess, assuming a head-to-head matchup between Schakowsky and Abughazaleh? I think the latter will end up pulling around 27%. We'll see if I'm right. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/fuq140i

[dhaaruni]

im sorry if you already had commentary on this but i would love to know your thoughts on kat abughazaleh... like not living in the district she's running apparently?!

Haha I haven't said anything really because I doubt she'll win.

But honestly, I don't think she's a serious candidate since a) she doesn't currently live in the district she's running in, b) has no history of living in that district, c) is refusing to run TV ads because she thinks appealing to older voters is icky (ignoring that older voters vote a lot more than the youths), and d) is primarying an elected official who, while old, is markedly more progressive than the voters in the district.

But she's very pretty (minus the weird Zoomer bangs) and I wish her the best of luck lol

[omamervt]

Hey I know that like, AOC is not a perfect or even necessarily good representative half the time, it seems like, but do you guys remember that time she and Ilhan Omar played Among Us on Twitch?

We need more representation like that.

Anyway here's Kat Abughazaleh, running for Congress in Illinois:

[meret118]

Recent reporting by the Orlando Sentinel revealed that Florida state officials are pressuring some districts to adopt an abstinence-only approach, stripping students of basic knowledge about contraception, anatomy, and human development. Students are being taught abstinence as the sole method of avoiding pregnancy and STDs, and terms like “abuse,” “fluids,” and “LGBTQ” are absent from classrooms.

“Under recent changes to state law,” reports the Associated Press, “it’s now up to the Florida Department of Education to sign off on school districts’ curriculum on reproductive health and disease education if they use teaching materials other than the state’s designated textbook.”

This week, Mother Jones Creator Kat Abughazaleh analyzes one of these state-approved plans, “Real Essentials,” which encourages “spiritual intimacy” and traditional marriage. The plan’s author has a history of citing pro-abstinence education research from the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025.

Florida’s approach is a test for a much broader movement, Kat argues. Just pages into Project 2025, you’ll find a promise to register “educators and public librarians” who purvey “pornography”—a term so vaguely defined as to potentially include any term currently being weaponized in the culture war—as registered “sex offenders.” Another section calls for provisions to prevent types of sex education that might “promote prostitution, or provide a funnel effect for abortion facilities and school field trips to clinics.”

[sponsored-deactivated20210106]

She has more perspective than the 80-year old geriatric Congresswoman she's running against.

When so many of these people are unqualified, with very little to no experience in the field they're supposed to lead, I start wondering if these are the qualifications in the first place. Because all of this is starting to look like a feature rather than a bug.