When Kat Abughazaleh disappeared from her job as an extremism researcher and video producer in media matters last year, Elon Musk personally entered X to celebrate his misfortune.
“Karma is real,” Musk Says.
But as Abughazaleh said in a video on Monday announcing him Campaign For Congress, he is not afraid to stand in Musk, especially as he influence on the federal government rise.
Instead, the 26-year-old looks at the ninth district of Illinois. The current representative, 80-year-old Democrat Jan Schakowsky, was first elected to Congress before Abughazaleh was born.
“I have ideas that I want to push, and I have a big [social media] Platform, “Abughazaleh told Techcrunch Monday.” I feel like I don't want to wait for someone to do something when I can do anything right now. “
Abughazaleh built his online audience through his work on media matters, where he was known for making videos that redeemed rhetoric and accuracy of Fox News. But when Musk Sued media matters Within an article about how X placed ads next to the Pro-Nazi content, the legal cost mounting led the non-profit to remove Abughazeh and twelve others.
Now an independent social media creator, he has gained more than half a million followers across the platform for his progressive political content, along his biggest audience (222,000 followers) in Tiktok.
“There is no reason that you should not afford housing, groceries, and health care with money,” he said in his campaign announcement. “Families should have free child care, Social Security should be expanded, and our inevitable rights should not depend on who is in power.”
Abughazaleh did not expect his run-in with muscle to be restored to the wider public. But more than ten months after Musk celebrated his disappearance, more than 30,000 Federal Employees Now know the feeling of losing their jobs due to billionaire machinations.
“A lot of people in journalism, especially in the collapse of this disinformation, go through the kind of test period, or a run run, a dry run of what Trump and Musk do abroad,” he told Techcrunch.
“We know what's going to happen … We're angry that we're right, but it also means we have tools to fight and find out what's going on and know how to handle it.”
A Tikoker became a political candidate
While young people have a history leaning to the liberal, the Voters of Gen Z moved More conservative in last year's election. Abughazaleh thinks this is a product of poor outreach from Democrats.
“I think the big problem with the democrats is their digital approach, and people like me and the younger people have a better understanding [of the internet]”He said.” This is something we grew up with. “
Some critics may think that his age is a double blade because he is young enough to have a long online footprint. But Abughazaleh didn't remember. As he is write In one who doubts X, “I hope you enjoyed my Middle School One Direction Fan Blog and pictures of my cat.”
In Trump's time – the President literally owned a social media platform where he always posted – it was no longer illegal to showcase online.
“We have a president who posted anything he had in mind at any time,” he said. “I think we're going well like, having been having from the age of 13.”
Given his muscle history, he does not plan to focus X on his digital approach. Mainly other other social media platforms, Abughazaleh prioritizes Bluesky, where he is around 154,000 followers.
On Monday, for example, he posted his announcement in the Bluesky campaign for an hour and a half before moving to other platforms.
“I really like Bluesky's policies in many things,” he said. “They rent more moderators, and many other places are not moderating, or firing moderators.”
For example, Meta, that —ouveruled its content moderation policies In January, the third-party check-fact program was completed.
Bluesky has grown to more than 33 million users, and even former President Barack Obama Join the platform On the weekend. But its population is still relatively small compared to long -term social giants such as Instagram or X.
Regardless, Abughazaleh's approach has proven to be successful today. During the first seven hours of his campaign, he raised $ 100,000 with an average contribution of $ 45.
“We got the most social media donations from Bluesky to any other platform,” Abughazaleh told Techcrunch.
Abughazaleh is also enthusiastic about the open source of Bluesky. He is trying to echo transparency on his YouTube channel, where he plans to share videos documenting his campaign experience.
“I was able to be transparent about how to run for office, because I felt it was kind of this black hole that seemed more difficult than it was,” he said.
Although he did not win a chair in Congress, he hopes that his openness about this process will inspire other Gen Z candidates to run.
“If this campaign was planned, I would be the youngest woman to be elected to Congress,” he said. “But I think it would be cool if we had another candidate to come in and be younger than me.”
