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During the 2024 presidential election, @KamalaHQ was something of an alter ego for Vice President Kamala Harris — as Harris ran a buttoned-up campaign, the online accounts shared clips of her set to viral TikTok sounds, shitposted unflattering pictures of Donald Trump, and adopted a voice that was at times indistinguishable from the average 20-something posting about politics on X. It was an effective way to rack up likes, engagement, and explainers, but it did not stop Trump from winning a second term.
The same people who ran @KamalaHQ announced last week that they were reviving the accounts and rebranding as Headquarters, described in various places as a “Gen Z content hub,” a “newsroom,” and “an online media brand.” Headquarters launched on platforms including Instagram, TikTok, X, Substack, and Facebook, where so far it has largely shared clips of breaking news moments: Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show performance, for example, or of lawmakers grilling Trump administration officials about Jeffrey Epstein. (Its first handle on X, @headquarters_67, was derided by some; the account later changed its handle to @headquarters_68, and is now @HQNewsNow.) The Instagram account has already co-posted content with the locally focused Courier Newsroom, a similar left-leaning media brand that is expanding across the US.
The effort is a response to the reality that the right has spent years building up a content machine that now has a hold on the highest levels of the Trump administration, which itself is filled with podcasters, trolls, and internet agitators. By repurposing social media handles with millions of followers and an established voice, Headquarters is looking to flood the zone with unabashedly liberal, anti-Trump content. Some of the responses to Headquarters boiled down to “This is cringe.” Many questioned whether a content hub was enough of a response to the lawlessness of the second Trump administration. Others, of course, were happy to see the memes.
I spoke with Lauren Kapp and Parker Butler, managing partners at Luminary Strategies, and Arlie Shugaar, director of platforms at People for the American Way (PFA), part of the team running Headquarters, about their plan to counter the right-wing content machine.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Verge: This idea of repurposing a campaign social media account is definitely novel. How should voters and audiences understand the account? Is it an extension of the Democratic Party? Should they think of it as a third-party content creator/influencer account? Is it an extension of Kamala Harris as a politician?
Parker Butler: I would think of it as a news and commentary resource with an obviously progressive lens. The vice president does not have editorial control over the content. The accounts are repurposed, so they are not the vice president’s campaign accounts. They are an entirely new brand with a different purpose. Central to that is the recognition that an account like this with 8 million-plus followers across platforms can have an enormous impact across not just one election, but many elections, many causes, and I think that’s particularly important as we head into 2026.
How were you thinking about what to do with the account after the election?
Lauren Kapp: We saw this as a huge missed opportunity if we did not repurpose it. There was such a surge in [followers] after the ticket transition in July 2024. And while the Kamala HQ account is known for its memes and trends, we had an entire clipping apparatus that was embedded in the KHQ team and we’re really ramping that up. We’re going to be creating very similar styles of content that we were on the campaign, but also you’ll continue to see a lot of direct-to-camera videos of our staffers. The entire clipping apparatus is getting restarted again as well too, and just really holding this current administration accountable on a day-to-day basis.
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