'We Are in an Emergency': Progressive TikTok Star Launches Bid to Unseat Old-Guard Dem
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The progressive TikTok star is running for Congress in a Democratic district that hasn’t had a competitive primary in decades.

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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.

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“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.”

her announcement video on Bluesky

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are dismantling our country piece by piece. And so many Democrats seem content to just sit back and let them. So I say it’s time to drop the excuses and grow a fucking spine.

(the video is 2 minutes long, but I paused it at this point and immediately donated $20 to her campaign)

  •  Drusas   ( @Drusas@fedia.io ) 
    14•8 days ago

    Illinois 9th District has only been represented by two people since 1965

    Jesus fucking christ. Term limits, please. And stop relying on longevity in congress to choose who holds the most powerful positions.

  •  Pete Hahnloser   ( @Powderhorn@beehaw.org ) English
    3•8 days ago

    I was linked to this earlier today, and when she said she’d been covering the right wing, I had no idea she meant on TikTok. I have an admittedly archaic definition of “coverage”: reporting via the written word. I honestly had no idea there were people doing serious reporting on there.

    Never been on there and have thus far not seen a reason. Same reason I’ve never been on Instagram: Shortform doesn’t interest me unless it’s The Onion.

    •  spit_evil_olive_tips   ( @spit_evil_olive_tips@beehaw.org ) OP
      10•8 days ago

      I have an admittedly archaic definition of “coverage”: reporting via the written word.

      here’s an interview with her, from last year in Current Affairs: Kat Abughazaleh on How Right-Wing Propaganda Works

      Kat Abughazaleh has watched a lot of Fox News. As an analyst for Media Matters, her job was to monitor the Fox primetime shows, producing videos documenting some of the most deranged stories to appear on the network. Somebody has to keep track of what’s going on in the right’s media ecosystem, and we’re glad that Kat performs this valuable public service.

      Examples of her work include videos about Mike Huckabee’s indoctrination program, the “right-wing Amazon”, Tucker Carlson’s post-Fox career, Conservapedia, and her weekly Fox roundups. We can laugh at the right’s media, but its effects are alarming. Introducing Fox News to a market turns people more conservative and many people have disturbing stories of how their relatives have had their minds poisoned by the stream of hatred and paranoia that Fox transmits into their brains.

      the right-wing media ecosystem she covers is inherently video-based. Fox News has text articles on their website but they probably get next to nothing in views compared to video clips on their website or their actual TV news shows.

      and so media criticism of that right-wing ecosystem is also going to be inherently video-heavy. maybe you could have a text article interspersed with video clips, but that’s pretty unwieldy.

      I honestly had no idea there were people doing serious reporting on there.

      I’m also “old man yells at cloud” about TikTok…but you probably remember the original, early-2000s Daily Show with Jon Stewart, right? how they’d show video clips of a politician saying something, and 5 years earlier saying the opposite, etc? and how, for its time, that was a breath of fresh air? that wasn’t text-based, but it was still “serious reporting”, right? journalism is speaking truth to power. you can do that in any medium.

      I’m not on TikTok, but I’ve seen enough clips shared on other platforms to know that TikTok has everything. if there wasn’t someone doing left-leaning journalism on TikTok, someone would step in to fill the void.

      and it’s not necessarily all shortform video - here’s an hour-long video on her YouTube channel: The Dangerous Reality of White Christian Nationalism

      but for better or worse, shortform video seems to be what gets actually watched. the video above has 82k views. meanwhile, 4 minutes on Why Conservatives Hate Being Called “Weird” has 116k (and that’s just YouTube, I suspect Instagram and TikTok views of the shorter videos are significantly higher)