Two Political Influencers Say US Voters Lack a Shared Reality

At the WIRED World Fair in Miami on Wednesday, two figures from opposite sides of US politics discussed the role of influencers and algorithms: Democrat Kat Abughazaleh, who ran for an Illinois US House seat this year, and Republican strategist CJ Pearson. The talk came a day after elections in which, according to the publication, Democrats won a historic wave in both the House and the Senate.

Why it matters

A YouGov survey of 2,000 adults found that nearly 65 percent get political information from digital creators. Among Gen Z the figure rises to 77 percent.

The White House and online creators

The Trump administration has actively welcomed right-wing creators into the White House. Former Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt opened formal press briefings to digital creators last year and held influencer-specific sessions. The move drew criticism for favoring softball questions while traditional media presence in briefings was curtailed.

Pearson, who previously served on the Republican National Committee's Youth Advisory Council, said several federal agencies are now copying the White House approach. He described it as the price of winning attention in the digital age. He also called the decision last year to give portions of the Epstein files to 15 right-wing creators a misstep.

Abughazaleh, a former Media Matters reporter, sees the administration's online embrace as something more sinister. She criticized the Department of Education's use of a meme and the use of AI-generated content in ads about ICE, the immigration enforcement agency, saying it turns "cruelty into content".

Common ground

The forum included testy exchanges, including over whether ICE facilities can be called concentration camps and whether Elon Musk has made X a bastion of free speech. Still, both agreed that reliance on algorithms is creating echo chambers among young Americans. "We have no shared reality," Abughazaleh said.