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- [00:00]
Kat Abu Ghazale
Foreign.
- [00:05]
Progressive Podcast Host
Thank God. A new slate of progressive politicians are entering into campaigns. And one person we have our eye on from the great state of Illinois is Kat Abu Ghazale. Did I pronounce that correctly?
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Kat Abu Ghazale
You nailed it. Yay.
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Progressive Podcast Host
Sometimes with my Oklahoma accent, Cat, I don't mean to mispronounce things, but I just do. And I sound like the biggest hick when I do so.
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Kat Abu Ghazale
Hey, look, I grew up in Texas, especially like post 911 Texas with his last name. I have heard all of it.
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Progressive Podcast Host
Oh, I'm sure. Okay, so tell us, I believe, are you the person that I threw down?
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Kat Abu Ghazale
Yeah, yeah. That one video that you're talking about, that's actually the third time they've thrown me. They really like throwing me and dragging my friend, but yeah, that's me.
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Progressive Podcast Host
So you're going to these places where ICE is and standing up for human beings and these ICE agents are just rabid, Gestapo style pricks, it sounds like.
- [01:07]
Kat Abu Ghazale
Oh, yeah, so like Broadview. The Broadview Processing center is where ICE headquarters its operations. And it's hell inside that facility. They're committing crimes against humanity inside that facility. And so for weeks, people have been protesting outside of the facility. And ICE responded with one sided violence and one sided escalation. They've literally used snipers to shoot us with rubber bullets while they tear gas and pepper ball us. And now I am under federal indictment for exercising my First Amendment rights.
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Progressive Podcast Host
Wow. And so this is obviously Pam Bondi's doj. And what do your attorneys say about the indictment?
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Kat Abu Ghazale
You know, the charges are ridiculous. I and the five other people charged have pled not guilty. They actually misspelled my name three times in the indictment and they spelled it correctly six times, so they don't know how to use copy paste. We plan on winning, you know, in election day and in court. But the amount, the way that this administration will do anything to silence people is expected, but still so embarrassing.
- [02:20]
Progressive Podcast Host
Well, and it's bone chilling, you know, when you look at what the DOJ is doing right now with the James Comey case, and they are basically just forcing these indictments and the complete dismantling of the DOJ and the rule of law has such massive impacts for obviously a protester like yourself who wants to go protest against a overzealous criminal acting ICE agency, but also for the people who care about fiscal conservatism, when you erode the courts, where do you go to enforce your contract?
- [03:00]
Kat Abu Ghazale
No, truly. And also they're spending so much money on just this case, but also everything else you know, I'm running in the 9th district of Illinois, which is uptown Chicago up to Evanston and then to Skokie and then all the way out to Algonquin and Crystal Lake. And they indicted me because they know I'm the most effective voice against this administration in my race. I covered the far right as a journalist and researcher. I keep saying that covering Nazis is like the best practice for running for Congress, but it's also the best practice for being indicted by this administration. We know what to expect. And the thing is, it's not effective, not just for me, but because everyone in the Chicago area has been impacted by ICE in one way or another, and we all hate it. No one's having a good time. And they thought they could crush our spirits with tear gas and masked men, and instead they were met with defiance. So now they're trying to use the federal legal system to crush people's spirits. And that's not going to work either.
- [04:01]
Progressive Podcast Host
Okay, let's talk about, with regards to this administration and previous pre maga, Republicans basically starting a propaganda campaign against blue cities and that blue cities are scary, that blue cities have black people, that blue cities have immigrants, that blue cities have pride parades. And it has been really effective. I just recently moved to New York, and before I did, I lived in Oklahoma City. And people say, what are you doing? I said, I'm moving to New York. And I could always tell somebody that watched Fox News, they go, oh, my God, the crime. You're not going to ride the subway, are you? And I'm like, yeah, I write it every single day, every time I go there. It's the easiest way to get around. What I'm interested in Democrats doing right now is, number one, not only fighting MAGA the way you're doing it, calling them out for the fascist fascists that they are. The Gestapo and Nazi parallels are absolutely what they are, and they need to be called as such, but also Democrats. How are we going to message better? Because really, when you look at these red states in these red cities, you see a government that is complete parasite for the rich people in that state or the rich people in that city that exploit the very people that make that city run. Furthermore, you cannot name a big red city. It doesn't exist. And lastly, this attack on big cities is an attack on multiculturalism, because multiculturalism is the remedy for white supremacy. And so I get frustrated as a Democrat, as a progressive person, that. And I'm not putting this on you, I'm putting it on the party at large. Messaging at large that we are not talking about what abject failures and what hellscapes these quote unquote, red cities, which are really rural towns and red states are. And we're not. We're not fighting fascism and calling out how shitty their policies are all day, every day. And this new generation of candidates such as yourself, I see this fight more. So what do you have to say about Democratic messaging moving forward being more of a fuck you brand of politics instead of languaging police and monitoring everything?
- [06:18]
Kat Abu Ghazale
Yeah, I mean, you're right on the money here. I covered the right for a long time, and I always have kind of a policy of go after the pundits and the people that are pushing this because the vast majority of people want their like, for them and their loved ones to live a safe, happy life. And ignorance, the effects are so negative, but it itself is completely value neutral. I grew up as a Republican in Texas. But for example, when some of my family started, you know, visited me and rode Amtrak, they were like, wow, this is great. I can have a cigarette between stops. And I'm like, yeah, like, exposure is one of the best ways to fight ignorance. And that is why they try to keep people ignorant. That's why billionaires like Rupert Murdoch spend billions of dollars to keep people in this bubble. And so I think believing in something would be helpful. I would like Democrats who actually believe in something and don't test every message like five different consultants and five different focus groups. You know, this district goes all the way out to rural areas. It encompasses urban, suburban, and rural areas. And we have Republicans in this district that have told me, I don't know if I agree with everything you believe in or even some of what you believe in, but I do think you actually believe it. And so I'm interested. I want to come down to the campaign office or I want to come meet you. Because every politician seems just bought by corporate donors, and every politician seems to not actually believe in anything. They're just trying to move to what they think other people believe. And that's not what being a leader is, or at least not what I think it should be.
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Progressive Podcast Host
Let's talk about the. In the district that you're running for, the rural people, and the lies that have been told to them by Republicans for years and years and years. And in many, in most cases, they use the Christian signal. They accuse the left all the time of virtue signaling, which doesn't even come close to comparing the way the Republican Party weaponizes and Christian signals, particularly to rural voters. And they use their faith to make them think that the Democrats or these, you know, terrible people, demonic. And, you know, those are their words, not ours.
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Kat Abu Ghazale
And I was just called possessed by a Republican the other day who gave me holy water.
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Progressive Podcast Host
Exactly. And these rural Americans have been lied to by the Republican Party and they have been presented a scapegoat, that the reason you can't have nice things are because of these immigrants or these gays or this drag queen or. I've entered the case now the white liberal woman, you know is ruining America. That's how desperate they're. They're getting and blaming other people. But let's speak to what. How a politician like you, a candidate like you, is getting misidentified as a radical, when really there's nothing radical about what you want. You mentioned Amtrak and you're mentioning not being beholden to corporations. I would imagine that you want child care and health care for people. And the lie that these basic things are radical is so insane. And I think that Democratic candidates like you need to talk about instead of us being so radical that no, we're just deprogrammed to the corporate propaganda.
- [09:32]
Kat Abu Ghazale
Amen. And also just like, not buying into it. When someone calls you radical, don't be like, no, I'm not. Just feel like it's not radical to think you shouldn't have to take an Uber instead of an ambulance. Our top two priorities on this campaign are anti authoritarianism, the house is on fire. You can't fix it till you put the fire out, and basic existence, which I'm sick of all of these very basic ideas being treated as one individual thing at a time, like health care or groceries or childcare, when in reality, they're all connected. So it's the idea that everyone should be able to afford housing, groceries, and healthcare with money left over to save and spend, which is what a lot of our grandparents would have thought the center is. But for some reason, a lot of establishment Democrats think the center is just to keep moving. Right? And I want to say, no, that's radical. The center is that everyone can afford their basic needs and everyone has equal rights. And when I talk to more red voters and I say, look, I think you deserve this too. We're the richest country in the world. You deserve to have health care. You deserve to be able to afford where you live. You deserve to be able to go to the hospital without worrying about going into bankruptcy. And a lot of times people stop and they're like, wait, I do deserve that. We fetishize misery in this country where we're taught we don't deserve good things and we do, we deserve to just be able to live. That's what a government's supposed to do. It's not a shitty business that folds every time Trump tries to do a new grift. It, it is a government, it's supposed to serve the people.
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Progressive Podcast Host
And I think in general, when government policies work and serve the people and if you think about FDR and what a transformational president he was, when these services work, people like them, for example, this is just a basic one. I like it when air traffic control works. I appreciate that. I appreciate when it is functioning full tilt. And then you can go to the just utter exploitation that occurs from these parasitic billionaires that suck off of these working class people. And the, the, the most insidious, diabolical thing that the Republican Party has done has lied for decades and decades and decades and told people that they can't have nice things because of immigrants or they can't have nice things because, you know, the white liberal woman or whatever. So tell my listeners like what your and I know there's a lot but your top three issues for your candidacy for anybody that would be an urbanite that lives in the center of Chicago and how those needs connect to a rural voter outside of Chicago.
- [12:20]
Kat Abu Ghazale
Fantastic question. First off, anti authoritarianism Illinois does so many things right, but that means that you weren't dealing with people like Dan Bongino and Elon Musk on a daily basis. I covered Tucker Carlson and my and my team's work contributed to him getting fired from Fox News. Elon Musk deposed me because he got triggered by my work. I all the people I used to cover now run our government. And I know how to put up an effective response to them in a way that a lot of our leaders haven't because they haven't been listening to people in the anti disinformation and anti extremism space. We told them about January 6th before it happened, Covid misinformation where the anti trans CRT DEI panic would lead and they didn't listen. So I'm running. So that's my top issue. We need to delay and obstruct this president's agenda as much as we can. And we need our leaders to actually put their reputation and bodies on the line. If you have power, platform privilege, you got to use it. Second basic existence. Everyone deserves to afford housing, groceries and health care with money left over to save and spend. And the reality is, even if you're more Fiscally conservative universal health care protections against price gouging and building more housing with federal incentives to work with local businesses to stimulate the state and local economy actually save us money. And in the meantime, we can actually lower taxes for the working class. We can institute what's called a cost of living exemption, which essentially means that any money under the cost of living just wouldn't be taxed. Uh, and we can, if we're taxing wealth effectively for people making say 50, $100 million a year, that means paper profits, the money that Jeff Bezos makes sitting on his ass, that's not taxed. While your bartending shift is, we can get even more revenue for these efficient and effective systems. And lastly, we just need. We are the richest country in the world and I think one of the most frustrating things is seeing how our government is able to teach us that we don't deserve good things. And because of that, the reason they are able to do that is because we don't have enough reform of how they should behave. We need a binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court for our congresspeople. We need some type of limit, whether that's an upper age limit or a term limit for congresspeople. That's essential. And we need to change how campaign finance is done. What I have learned as a not rich person is that it is almost impossible to run for federal office if you are not already rich or you don't know a bunch of rich people. We need to not just overturn Citizens United, but make sure that there are maximums that we can spend in elections and also ensure that corporations and Republican funded PACs like AIPAC aren't allowed to to buy our elections. This should be by the people and for the people and you shouldn't have to go into bankruptcy just so just because you want to make a positive change in the world.
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Progressive Podcast Host
I completely agree and I think our elections are too long and frankly so.
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Kat Abu Ghazale
I've been running since March 24th.
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Progressive Podcast Host
There's a time limit on them and I think we need to shorten the amount of campaign time and the actual time that they go on so that people don't get so much fatigue. And actually as they're elongated, I think it causes massive disengagement and people's give a fuck meter about it breaks because it's just, it's a perma campaign in the United States all the time. Okay, Kat, you're cool. I really think that you are a fantastic candidate. I want to make sure that our listeners know how to send you Money to your campaign and listener. If it's A$5,$10. We have to combat these oligarchs. And even if she is not in your district, it's so important that we elect true progressives that will call out aipac, that call out corporate donors and are willing out their own party. It is important that we call out the Democrats that allow themselves to be bought and purchased and be the controlled opposition to these fascist fuckers on the other side. Pardon my language, Cat.
- [16:17]
Kat Abu Ghazale
No. Amen.
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Progressive Podcast Host
Tell our listeners how they can give you a donation, how they can support you, how they can follow you, how they can amplify your campaign.
- [16:26]
Kat Abu Ghazale
Thank you so much. You can go to my website, katforillinois.com that's Kat with a K F O R illinois.com you can donate. We are a grassroots campaign. Even with over 50,000 donors, our average donation still 32 bucks. So the lower the better. We appreciate any support. Of course, if you can afford a bit more, we're also grateful. Also you can volunteer and you can do that from anywhere in the country. We have a volunteer, Discord. Discord GG Cat 4 Illinois. We've got phone banking coming up. We have a lot of creative people that work from across the country that help us make merch and designs. We have people that help us research and make spreadsheets. Whatever you want to do, we want to use your skills. So Discord, GG Cat for Illinois. And if you know anyone that lives in the Chicago area, especially in the 9th district, which once again is like uptown Chicago, up to Evanston, then to Skokie and all the way out to Crystal Lake, tell them to get involved or look up the campaign. You know, we're a competitive primary. I'm so excited about that. And when we win, I hope that someone runs against me because competitive primaries are good. But tell them about our campaign. I would love to get their support or meet up with them. We have a policy where I'll meet anyone in the district for coffee anytime. And yeah, we also have a stream because I don't do call time, which is how most politicians get their money by calling rich people. So you can tune into those twice a week.
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Progressive Podcast Host
That's you're cool, campaign's cool. You're smart, you're a fighter and likable. All of the things that we need in the future of the Democratic Party. I wish you the very best. We will have you back on as the these long drawn out campaigns go on. You're welcome here anytime to message as your primary gets spicy and thank you so much for protecting these these immigrants and trying to fight for the most marginalized people in your city. That is just so admirable and you're actually walking the walk and talking the talk and so many people do not do that. So Kat thank you Abu Ghazale thank you so much and have a great week and please go donate to her campaign listener.
- [18:33]
Kat Abu Ghazale
Thank you so much.
- [18:45]
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