Last week, as millions woke up to the news that Kamala Harris had been defeated, one Democrat processing the news was only 5-years-old the last time Donald Trump was elected as president.
While not yet being old enough to vote, 13-year-old Knowa de Baraso is one of the youngest faces of the Democratic Party, and used his online platform of over 112,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter, to advocate for the Harris campaign.
When asked if he was optimistic for the future, Knowa told Newsweek, “to be honest, this might surprise you, but the answer is no.”
“Given that we also lost the House and Senate, I don’t see a clear path for the progressive policies I’ve championed to be passed,” he added.
Trump won the election with 312 Electoral College votes to the vice president’s 226, while Republicans took back the Senate majority, flipping three seats in increasingly red states and one in battleground Pennsylvania. The GOP also held on to its narrow majority in the House of Representatives.
Trump also claimed a lot of support among Gen Z men, with 52 percent of men aged between 18 and 44 voting for him in the election.
Commenting on the fact so many young people voted for Trump, Knowa said, “Quite frankly, I wasn’t surprised. The Trump campaign strategically targeted younger, college-age voters, recognizing them as a potentially more impressionable group, and many fell for his rhetoric.”
In the lead up to the election, Knowa said he hoped young people would vote while considering their older relations, like their mothers and grandmothers, who would “benefit from a Kamala Harris administration.”
“Let’s say you have nothing to lose here. You know someone who has something to lose,” he added, pointing to healthcare and social security.
Knowa said that he’s not “personally affected by most of these things, but I know people who are and I will advocate for them.”
Reflecting on the outcome of the election, Knowa said he recognized the importance of “the need for more transparency” in campaigns.
“Many college students didn’t realize that Kamala Harris, as Vice President, helped cancel $170 billion in student debt. Likewise, many HBCU students weren’t aware of her $16 billion investment in historically Black colleges and universities,” he said.
While he has another five years to wait before he can vote himself, Knowa said he still went to the polling center with 25 different family members and his parents.
Each time he went, he said he “felt a sense of optimism and hope, believing things were going to shift for the better.”
How Did Knowa Become Internet Famous?
Knowa was invited to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) by Jaime Harrison as an influencer, and is believed to be the youngest invited attendee at the 2024 DNC, according to talk radio station WTMJ.
There, Knowa went viral after he debated election conspiracy theories with Mike Lindell, who went undercover to the event – a clip of which Knowa posted on his X account.
Recalling what happened at the DNC, Knowa told Newsweek his phone had died after his encounter with Lindell and he only saw how people many had seen his post at 1 a.m.
“It was very, very surprising,” he said, as he explained how, at that time, over 50 million people had viewed the video in just seven hours and NBC‘s Seth Meyers and other late-night shows had also shown the footage on air.
Explaining how he ended up debating Lindell at the event, he said, “I joined this conversation expecting to see Democrats, like-minded individuals, maybe catch a few people I know from online or maybe network a little bit and get to know more people.”
He added that there were Republican Party members like Lindell, who had been “constantly lying about the Democratic Party, who thought it would be a good idea to join our convention – I couldn’t let that happen, so I talked to them, I confronted them.”
Knowa said that no Democrats were at the RNC “causing trouble, but they were at our convention causing trouble, which I think is a great deal of disrespect on their part.”
Newsweek has emailed Lindell for comment outside of normal working hours, via his company, My Pillow.
Prior to the DNC, Knowa still had a platform online as an non-political influencer and he used it to advocate for the charity work he did as a child, which included helping communities recover after hurricanes.
“Over time, I came to realize that politics is a form of charity work too. It’s about changing people’s minds and creating positive impact,” he told Newsweek.
As he felt that this year’s election was “so important,” a feeling shared by the majority of American voters according to a YouGov poll, he then decided to use his platform to “support Kamala Harris, and advocate for her policy.”
After going viral at the DNC, Knowa has since been offered a show on the Black Star Network by Roland Martin. Black Star Network is a media network that offers news and content on a wide range of topics, including politics, from Black thought leaders.
When asked what he thinks his future will hold, Knowa said, “I do see myself sticking around in the entertainment world and influencing the world for a little while. I’m not going anywhere.”
How Did Knowa Get Into Politics?
Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, Knowa’s interest in politics dates back to when he was a 10-year-old boy, not through his parents or his schooling, but by comparing the difference between Stacey Abrams‘ 2022 campaign commercials to her Republican opponent Brian Kemp.
Stacey Abrams made history in 2018 when she became the first African American woman to start a campaign to be U.S. governor, and was praised in 2020 for helping the Democrats secure a narrow lead in the 2020 election, the BBC reported.
“Despite my young age, it became clear to me that I needed to be part of the movement to challenge the Republican Party,” Knowa told Newsweek, “It was more about seeing someone like Stacey, who spoke to the issues that mattered to me, and realizing I wanted to make a difference in the political landscape.”
Abrams ignited Knowa’s passion for activism and social change, and in this year’s presidential election cycle, he was a vocal supporter of Harris.
Earlier this year, Knowa met Harris, or “Auntie” as he likes to call her, for the first time in February when his Congresswoman, Nikema Williams, invited him to a reception at the White House.
He has since met Harris a number of times, while attending various events organized by the Harris campaign.
“She was warm, she was so great, she was so nice to me and she read my business card to everyone, sat there and took time to read it,” he told Newsweek, “every voter, every volunteer, every person she meets, she speaks to them like she’s known them forever.”
He added that every day Harris and the U.S.’ Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff “are thinking about what they can do to make your life better.”
How Has Becoming Internet Famous Impacted Knowa?
Just before joining Newsweek for an interview, Knowa said that he’d been told some of his posts on X were receiving “very graphic threats.”
Knowa said that any graphic or threatening comments on his posts are automatically flagged and sent to a channel monitored by the appropriate law enforcement agencies.
“I’m incredibly grateful for my physical and cybersecurity teams keeping me safe,” he said.
He added, “You comment whatever you want that’s going to be handed over to the FBI, that’s not my job. I think it’s a great thing that I have the platform to advocate for these policies and these people.”
Although he said when it gets to the point where people are “commenting graphic details of what they would do if I was in their town, then that becomes very nerve-raking.”
Another potentially stressful part of his work as an influencer could be debating adults much older than him, but to Knowa this is “very easy to deal with.”
Speaking to people, like Mike Lindell, Knowa said, is easy, as they “don’t have the facts on their side.”
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The post Meet Knowa De Baraso, The 13-Year-Old Democrat Who Became A Viral Sensation appeared first on Newsweek.
