Can the Gravel Institute compete with the right-wing YouTube machine?

Last year, a pair of plucky teenagers ran a presidential campaign for former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel. Gravel, then 89, handed over the reins of his campaign to the two teens, Henry Williams and David Oks, in exchange for a commitment that they would use whatever influence came from the campaign to move people to the left. “After that campaign ended in August of 2019, we went on hiatus and we tried to think a lot about how we can best do that,” Williams, now 20 and taking a gap year from Columbia University, says. “And what we stumbled on was this question of institutions on the left.” Now that the 2020 election cycle is mostly over (barring a coup attempt and the Georgia Senate runoffs), the Gravel campaign is now the Gravel Institute, focused on creating media, specifically YouTube videos, to combat right-wing video commentators PragerU. The “Institute” itself is still mostly Williams, Oks, and a variety of helpers and supporters. But their hope is that — dependent on how they grow in the next year — they’ll be able to expand. Gravel himself is at this point loosely involved in an advisory capacity, but is not part of…
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