During a February debate hosted by Fox 32 Chicago, Kat Abughazaleh said everything I’ve seen my friends say on Instagram in the past two years. And there was no skirting around sensitive subjects during her answers.

The candidate running for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District in the U.S. House called for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Abughazaleh called the actions of Israel a “genocide” and labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal.” She brought up concerns about artificial intelligence and plugged her campaign office, which doubles as a mutual aid hub to help constituents in need.

The former journalist and content creator had several moments where she looked directly into the camera and talked to viewers directly – at one point even pulling a brief "Office"-style glance at the camera while her opponents, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and state Sen. Laura Fine, bickered over the involvement of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the Democratic race.

“This is part of why my content took off in the first place,” Abughazaleh told me in a recent interview. “I try to talk to people and communicate to people how I want to be talked and communicated to.”

As a collective, Generation Z, born between 1997 to 2012, is still finding its political footing. Everyone is trying to define us: Democrats want us to be the generation of "brat summer" and coconut memes, while Republicans want us to be "edgelords" and "trad wives" and unabashedly MAGA. But no one – at least, not people outside of the generation – has been able to pin us down.

Abughazaleh is saying what those of us on the progressive side of the generation have been thinking all along – and does it in a way that........

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