Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ok F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks.
Speaker 1: Often we have folks that join this show to talk
Speaker 1: about democratic messaging, to talk about who they should be
Speaker 1: outreaching to and how often and why why it should
Speaker 1: matter that you roll up on black and brown communities
Speaker 1: only two or three months before an election, as opposed
Speaker 1: to you know, working three hundred and sixty five days
Speaker 1: of the year to ensure that you are making your
Speaker 1: party the most attractive right and developing policies that matter
Speaker 1: and affect people's lives, and that they understand said policies
Speaker 1: and why they need to vote for you, and so
Speaker 1: on today's show, I'm really happy to welcome to ok
Speaker 1: F Daily for the first time to Tenda Musapatiki. She
Speaker 1: is the founder and CEO of Voter Formation Project, an
Speaker 1: organization that she started in twenty twenty to diversify the electorate.
Speaker 1: And you know, we get into a conversation today about
Speaker 1: how while on one hand, the twenty twenty election was
Speaker 1: the most historic in terms of voter turnout in the
Speaker 1: midst of a pandemic, and at the same time it
Speaker 1: is still retail politics and antiquated twentieth century retail politics
Speaker 1: that the Democratic Party still uses. And it's like, when
Speaker 1: are they going to get hip to how people think
Speaker 1: where they are and how they engage and use that
Speaker 1: in a way to bolster civic engagement. What would the
Speaker 1: country look like if one hundred percent of the people
Speaker 1: who were eligible to vote actually voted. What would it
Speaker 1: look like if those that were in voter suppressed districts
Speaker 1: and states, right were armed with information and power and engagement, right, Like,
Speaker 1: what would that look like? And I know that there
Speaker 1: are organizations on the ground, you know, that are doing
Speaker 1: the best that they can. But it's also like, we
Speaker 1: have an entire Democratic National Committee that has just seated
Speaker 1: the South, seated the Midwest, and put all of their
Speaker 1: stock in state in the coast. And we can see
Speaker 1: by virtue of the flipping of Georgia and the flipping
Speaker 1: back of Virginia that we should not seed anywhere. Right.
Speaker 1: What we need to do is a mass education project.
Speaker 1: And so I'm really excited for you to hear the
Speaker 1: conversation with Tatanda coming up next. Friends, I am very
Speaker 1: excited to welcome to WOKF Daily, to Tenda Musapati wait Musafa,
Speaker 1: tell me again, Musapa Tiki to Tenda. Musapa Tiki, who
Speaker 1: is the founder and CEO of Voter Formation Project, which
Speaker 1: is an organization whose work is to try and create
Speaker 1: the most diverse electorate possible by ushering black and Latina
Speaker 1: folks who have faced the most severe barriers to the
Speaker 1: ballot to the ballot. To Tenda, let's start out with
Speaker 1: telling me more about your organization and what you were
Speaker 1: thinking and was feeling about the strategies that you were
Speaker 1: going to use in the most consequential election of our lifetime.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, first, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: I am really grateful to be here. And it's a
Speaker 2: huge moment, a huge moment for democracy. And so I
Speaker 2: founded this org at the end of twenty twenty. I
Speaker 2: had been in the communications, tech and democracy space for
Speaker 2: a little over ten years at that point and knew
Speaker 2: that I really wanted to start to build out an
Speaker 2: organization that did the kind of work that I thought
Speaker 2: was reflective for the moment, that really leaned into digital experimentation,
Speaker 2: using the best tools that we have in digital marketing
Speaker 2: to reach out to the people most disenfranchised in our
Speaker 2: communities and who have the least information to the ballot box.
Speaker 2: I also cared a lot about how it is that
Speaker 2: people are treated in their workplaces and how it is
Speaker 2: that we can create strong strategies and work while also
Speaker 2: treating people with dignity and respect, because I strongly believe
Speaker 2: that if you are going to be a warrior for
Speaker 2: this moment, we need to be rested.
Speaker 3: That way we can continue to persevere over time.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't seeing that in any of the workplaces
Speaker 2: I'd been in, except for corporate ones, which was very interesting,
Speaker 2: and so I really knew that this organization needed to
Speaker 2: exist to meet the moment, and we are really focused
Speaker 2: on deeply understanding how it is that digital messaging can
Speaker 2: impact people's thoughts and feelings and attitudes about civic engagement
Speaker 2: while ahead of ever ever asking someone which is the
Speaker 2: key gap that's been missing, I think many.
Speaker 3: Of your listeners are familiar or even.
Speaker 2: Working in the moment where we focus all of our
Speaker 2: time and energy and attention on getting people to vote
Speaker 2: between September and November of an election year, and we
Speaker 2: are inundated with ads about candidates, We are inundated with
Speaker 2: negative ads about issues that are tied to candidates, but
Speaker 2: there is no year round work about how it is
Speaker 2: that we make people feel good.
Speaker 3: About civic engagement.
Speaker 2: Why is civic agent engagement portant, Why do these institutions matter,
Speaker 2: and why is it important that we don't just abandon
Speaker 2: it because we think the system's broken, and the system
Speaker 2: isn't broken. We don't have any messaging about that to
Speaker 2: any community year round, particularly those most disenfranchised and feeling
Speaker 2: the effects of our society as it is now. And
Speaker 2: I really wanted to fill that gap because I think
Speaker 2: one of the most powerful things about digital tools, especially
Speaker 2: digital marketing, is one it's always constant and pervasive because we're.
Speaker 3: On our phones all the time.
Speaker 2: And two, it has incredible power to help influence people's
Speaker 2: feelings and emotions daily, and it seems a huge strategic
Speaker 2: loss not to use that most of the year every year.
Speaker 2: It's insane, it's almost more costly not to And so
Speaker 2: I really started this org not just to begin to
Speaker 2: do this work, but measure its efficacy over time, which
Speaker 2: is a big part of what we do, which is
Speaker 2: a lot of digital marketing and research and messaging. But
Speaker 2: it just seemed crazy to me that we had ceded
Speaker 2: the Internet to these bad forces. Most of the you'ren't
Speaker 2: expected to remedy.
Speaker 3: It with like what a few two months and.
Speaker 2: Like content for two months. That's not how psychology works,
Speaker 2: that's not how human emotions work. And if we are
Speaker 2: serious about protecting our institutions in our democracy, we need
Speaker 2: to be serious about defending it in word and in
Speaker 2: media every day.
Speaker 3: Every day.
Speaker 1: You know, talk to me about what you have discovered
Speaker 1: over the course of time since the founding of your organization.
Speaker 1: And you know, the question that I have really is
Speaker 1: that do you really think that it is a mismanagement
Speaker 1: or misstep on the part of let's say, the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party in their lack of ability to educate and use
Speaker 1: social media as a way to educate, or is this
Speaker 1: just par for the course that you don't really want
Speaker 1: that many people engaged in our electoral process, right, And
Speaker 1: when I say not that many people engage, I mean
Speaker 1: people of color, right and young people. We talk about
Speaker 1: this every single election cycle, every single election cycle. It
Speaker 1: is the same conversation. The messaging is bad, they don't
Speaker 1: know how to speak to people, they don't get out.
Speaker 1: It's not a three hundred and sixty five right style campaign.
Speaker 1: It is one that is pushed in two months. And
Speaker 1: so I wonder, one, do you think that this is
Speaker 1: purposeful or is it just laziness, a lack of understanding
Speaker 1: how social media and people work and think right? Or
Speaker 1: is it purposeful? And if it is purposeful, a purposeful
Speaker 1: marginalization of certain groups, then how does your organization and
Speaker 1: the work that you are doing seek to really remedy that?
Speaker 1: And is it more of a long term right, not
Speaker 1: what I think the Democrats want and what Republicans want,
Speaker 1: which is just, you know, give us a quick return.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I would say I don't think it's purposeful
Speaker 2: on the part of the Democratic Party. I do think
Speaker 2: it's purposeful on the actors who most of the time
Speaker 2: are in the Republican Party, who say that we have
Speaker 2: voter fraud, we have insecure elections, we need to take
Speaker 2: all these extra precautions, like that is a made up problem.
Speaker 2: It is a made up problem.
Speaker 3: It does not exist. That is not a thing.
Speaker 2: Our elections are actually quite quite secure. And if you'll notice,
Speaker 2: the people who tend to get arrested for voter fraud.
Speaker 3: Are the ones proving it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Speaking on it.
Speaker 2: Georgia indictments like those are the people who are in
Speaker 2: trouble for like voter fraud and Rico, not voters. Okay,
Speaker 2: so it's a made up problem. I will say, what
Speaker 2: I think is happening on the Democratic party side is
Speaker 2: the problem of inertia, where there is a set of
Speaker 2: people who have determined and gained their power and their
Speaker 2: financial power and their personal wealth through a series of
Speaker 2: tactics and strategies that are no longer applicable for the moment.
Speaker 2: I think we truly have a series of leaders, both
Speaker 2: in office in many cases and behind the scenes, who
Speaker 2: are ill equipped for this moment and who do not
Speaker 2: understand the gravity and I think the intensity for which
Speaker 2: younger people who I'm defining as forty five and under
Speaker 2: are experiencing our country and our democracy, and therefore are
Speaker 2: not yet ready or fully understanding the need for actual, prescriptive,
Speaker 2: year round messaging. Because I think a big part of
Speaker 2: the problem is the finances of it. And that's a
Speaker 2: piece that like I think, you know, normal everyday people
Speaker 2: don't think about, but because of my job, I think
Speaker 2: about every day. It is the finances of who is
Speaker 2: going to pay for this outreach all the time, and
Speaker 2: if it's committees and candidates.
Speaker 3: They have to fundraise for it.
Speaker 2: They have to get that money from normal people, but
Speaker 2: then they have to give it to candidates.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Our financial our eluctant financial system one is very fucked up.
Speaker 3: There's way too much money in it.
Speaker 2: And it is not designed for people to actually have
Speaker 2: more folks voting, even though it is one thousand percent
Speaker 2: in Democrat's best interest to have the most diverse electric possible.
Speaker 2: That is oftentimes why you see Democratic campaigns running voter
Speaker 2: registration at all. In many cases, in many many demographies,
Speaker 2: the equation to fifty plus one requires voter registration of
Speaker 2: new constituents and the activation of lapsed voters. And the
Speaker 2: folks who are the strategists, who wield the most power,
Speaker 2: and who have the most influence, and who have the
Speaker 2: most fundraising prowess have not yet adapted to this modern model.
Speaker 2: The thing I have been telling people over and over
Speaker 2: and over again, as I think many people, and I actually.
Speaker 3: Think Joe Biden did this at first. He was like,
Speaker 3: I can work with these Republicans, I know the blah
Speaker 3: blah blah.
Speaker 2: No, these are not the people that we were dealing
Speaker 2: with before. We are in a completely new way of
Speaker 2: these folks thinking. And Hitler did not become Hitler on
Speaker 2: the first try.
Speaker 3: No, it was the third. And guess where we're at.
Speaker 2: So in this case, do I think that Donald Trump
Speaker 2: has the longevity in terms of his health.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Evil people tend to live longer.
Speaker 1: But McDonald's tends to kill people. So what I'm saying, who.
Speaker 2: Knows, But that facistic moment can absolutely get a new
Speaker 2: leader who can usher it in.
Speaker 3: Right. It's the ideas that we are fighting against here.
Speaker 2: It is the marginalization of people. It is the factionism.
Speaker 2: It is the people trying to equate democracy with fascistic
Speaker 2: control based on religion. These are not American values at all,
Speaker 2: and I don't think they know the majority of people
Speaker 2: do not hold those stances, which is why they're fighting
Speaker 2: so hard to change the system that way that their
Speaker 2: person can get in. And so the system and the
Speaker 2: constructs for how we run our elections, particularly for people
Speaker 2: on the left, is not meeting the moment.
Speaker 1: In those lines, I agree with you wholeheartedly because I
Speaker 1: think that there is an inertia and a complacency, and
Speaker 1: I think to your point in the way that Joe
Speaker 1: Biden even entered his first term as president, was you know,
Speaker 1: I was a member of the good old Boys network,
Speaker 1: Like there are still good Republicans. You know, this is
Speaker 1: still the America of you know, my father and my
Speaker 1: father's father. And I'm speaking at the factories and I'm
Speaker 1: doing those things, and I'm just like, are we really
Speaker 1: still doing retail politics in the same fucking way we've
Speaker 1: been doing for the last like half century plus and
Speaker 1: thinking that that's working in the age of TikTok and
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram and threads and Twitter and x and
Speaker 1: all like in every single other fragmented space that communication
Speaker 1: flows through. And so to your point, it is bizarre
Speaker 1: to me that we know right, like it is not
Speaker 1: it's not unknown, the ways that social media gets after people,
Speaker 1: the way that I can very much talk about my
Speaker 1: favorite lufa and then that show up in all of
Speaker 1: my advertisement on social media, right, the way that like
Speaker 1: these algorithms are made to keep you on. And so
Speaker 1: the fact that we haven't figured it out then, I
Speaker 1: mean you have now and have the desire to tap
Speaker 1: into what emotionally connects people to their devices and to
Speaker 1: these platforms and then turn that into what also connects
Speaker 1: you to your civic engagement, right and responsibility. I think
Speaker 1: is just crazy at this point. Now I say that,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to overlook the fact that the
Speaker 1: last election happened in the height of a pandemic and
Speaker 1: we had historic turnout. So talk to me about too,
Speaker 1: the compelling nature not necessarily of the candidate, but of
Speaker 1: the issues that we're facing that are driving people to
Speaker 1: the polls that might not have gone to the polls
Speaker 1: if we hadn't have been in the midst of a
Speaker 1: pandemic with you know, the beginning of which began with
Speaker 1: a facistic leader, you know, and then we're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, we're never going to get well if we
Speaker 1: don't get rid of this guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's god.
Speaker 2: That election was just so revealing for a number of reasons,
Speaker 2: but one I think a few things impacted it. One,
Speaker 2: people were at home and had time to pay attention
Speaker 2: to like the fuckery, right, Like people were not in
Speaker 2: many cases rushing to and front work or like out
Speaker 2: and about living their lives like we were in the
Speaker 2: house or at work. And if you were at work,
Speaker 2: you probably weren't happy about it because you wanted to
Speaker 2: be in the house because there was a pandemic and
Speaker 2: you were a frontline worker for whatever, like at whatever
Speaker 2: job that you had. Right like that I think brought
Speaker 2: to like a lot of things. The other thing that happened, though,
Speaker 2: is we had governments really thinking in a way that
Speaker 2: they never have about how can we still have people
Speaker 2: both safely. And it's pretty incredible to me actually that
Speaker 2: now that we still have this pandemic, by the way,
Speaker 2: folks aren't still thinking about how to get as many
Speaker 2: people to vote safely. Like we still live in the
Speaker 2: United States of America where like everyone's getting shot frequently.
Speaker 2: So why aren't we still thinking about how more people
Speaker 2: can vote safely?
Speaker 3: I'll tell you why.
Speaker 2: Because there are people interested in making sure certain communities
Speaker 2: don't get to vote safely.
Speaker 3: And so in that.
Speaker 2: The issues that like are heightened for people were ones
Speaker 2: of education, access, wealth, like questions about safety at work,
Speaker 2: and those issues still matter. So we ran a test
Speaker 2: during the midterm cycle and found that issues framing for
Speaker 2: younger voters in particular was extremely motivating for them to
Speaker 2: feel better about saving engagement. So usually in previous election cycles. Again,
Speaker 2: I've been doing this for a decade and like tracking
Speaker 2: research and whatnot. Usually, the most impactful messages on turnout
Speaker 2: or people registered to vote tend to be informational. A
Speaker 2: huge reason why many people don't vote is they just
Speaker 2: don't have enough information. It's not familiar to them. It's
Speaker 2: a convoluted process. You have to take time out of
Speaker 2: your day to do it, and so easy presentation of
Speaker 2: the information necessary to vote makes a difference for many
Speaker 2: many people. This was the first time in my life
Speaker 2: I had seen an issues framing outperform an information framing
Speaker 2: for a.
Speaker 3: Certain cohort of people. And it is not.
Speaker 2: Lost on me because when I think about millennials and
Speaker 2: Gen Z, the world that we have grown up in
Speaker 2: is very markedly different from that of our parents. We
Speaker 2: are very acutely aware that the planet's going to burn
Speaker 2: us up and could easily kill us or ruin our livelihoods,
Speaker 2: because that is happening every.
Speaker 3: Day in our livelihoods.
Speaker 2: We are the first generations to understand that it is
Speaker 2: very likely that we could get shot at school, and
Speaker 2: we have to practice how not to get shot at school.
Speaker 2: This is a generation of people who have not been
Speaker 2: able to afford housing. This is a generation of people
Speaker 2: who have not been able to afford rent. This is
Speaker 2: a generation of people that when they had their first
Speaker 2: kids there was a formula shortage. This is a generation
Speaker 2: of people who, you know, church was not a thing
Speaker 2: that we went to, but yet we're being told what
Speaker 2: we can do with our bodies because people went to
Speaker 2: church and institution that is deeply unfamiliar to most of us.
Speaker 2: This is the first generation to lose many rights for
Speaker 2: half of this population when there weren't any. This is
Speaker 2: the first generation that had the bravery to be out
Speaker 2: and be clear and be told to sit back down.
Speaker 2: We are living in a fucked up situation compared to
Speaker 2: our parents, and so it is not surprising to me
Speaker 2: that these issues and things that we want to fix
Speaker 2: that are frankly being forced upon us from a generation
Speaker 2: with outsize power.
Speaker 3: Are animating.
Speaker 2: And when I explain that to people, they're like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, Genz's been through so much on like the
Speaker 2: millennials too, Like, it is not lost on me that, like, finally,
Speaker 2: when y'all realize that we are not children anymore, that
Speaker 2: we actually are like the middle aged John Tie's watching
Speaker 2: the kids on TikTok with Bama Rush That is me
Speaker 2: currently all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we couldn't feed our kids, like people couldn't feed
Speaker 1: their children because of systems set up by the older generation.
Speaker 2: We can't afford college, we can't afford homes. We are
Speaker 2: mired in debt.
Speaker 1: It's like the cantiford college. Can't afford not to go
Speaker 1: to college, right, like can't afford can't afford not to work.
Speaker 1: But there are no jobs like it is you know,
Speaker 1: when you list out all of the ways in which
Speaker 1: the latest two generations have been robbed of the prosperity
Speaker 1: that prior generations, it was just a given right, It
Speaker 1: was just a given go get your ged. Here's Levittown
Speaker 1: for you. Here are all these things, here's the GI bill,
Speaker 1: here's the new deal. Here are all of these opportunities
Speaker 1: for you to build inside of the middle class. And
Speaker 1: what did we give millennials? Kind of like like r
Speaker 1: not getting taught in school and not.
Speaker 2: Being forced to go to war right like and when
Speaker 2: I say forced for a lot of low income people,
Speaker 2: the military is the best.
Speaker 3: Option for you because housing education. Right.
Speaker 2: We live in a system that has been rigged against
Speaker 2: us while being told that the.
Speaker 3: Generation should each make each generation wealthier, and that never happened.
Speaker 2: Right us, So, yeah, and issues are animating.
Speaker 3: It's we also saw.
Speaker 1: An instruction that was fun, right that that was great too,
Speaker 1: also televised. You know, when we think about the issues
Speaker 1: being animated, when we think about this generation, these generations
Speaker 1: that are coming now being less fortunate than the generations
Speaker 1: that went prior, when we think about oh, not to
Speaker 1: mention the fact that, you know, authoritarianism is not only
Speaker 1: taking a hold in the United States but around the world,
Speaker 1: and that thirty percent of the population would love to
Speaker 1: appoint Donald Trump as their king right as opposed to
Speaker 1: have a democracy that is multiracial so that they can
Speaker 1: continue to have this fallacy of white supremacy and the
Speaker 1: privilege of their of their skin. When we take all
Speaker 1: of those things into consideration, you still have a large
Speaker 1: slot of people who are like, government does not work.
Speaker 1: These are all of the reasons why government does not work.
Speaker 1: So why the fuck am I voting? What do you
Speaker 1: say to that?
Speaker 3: A few things. One, it's a very rational thought.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to look at folks who have had
Speaker 4: a system not work for them and have never seen
Speaker 4: change or you know, monumental change happen between between administrations
Speaker 4: and say it's a rational thought.
Speaker 2: But let's look at locally how these things can help.
Speaker 2: I think local elections are a really strong and easy
Speaker 2: and fast demonstrator of how government can be helpful. Right
Speaker 2: like if you are looking at your local school system
Speaker 2: and your school district, and I think that's one of
Speaker 2: the backlash things that's going to.
Speaker 3: Happen for the tactic of let's change.
Speaker 2: All of our school policies and let's make our schools
Speaker 2: like matic for right wing policies. People are not realizing,
Speaker 2: oh shoot, who I vote for at this local level
Speaker 2: impacts my kids, their education, their access to things. It
Speaker 2: impacts the roads, it impacts my local taxes, it impacts
Speaker 2: my direct life. And I think once that starts getting
Speaker 2: explained to people and you start showing concrete examples, another
Speaker 2: good one at the national level would.
Speaker 3: Be called them bidom bucks.
Speaker 2: We came out of a pandemic, you got extra money,
Speaker 2: we had our student loans pause, like all of these
Speaker 2: things that had made a difference in people's lives. We
Speaker 2: need to tie that back in a very coherent way
Speaker 2: to show no, you might not see change overnight, but
Speaker 2: there are marginal things that happen when you participate, and
Speaker 2: there are very bad things that can happen.
Speaker 3: When you don't. But we have to make the case.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's right to judge people who have
Speaker 2: made that basis based on their life experiences. We have
Speaker 2: a responsibility, especially as people who are working in the
Speaker 2: democratic space little de democratic space, to make sure that
Speaker 2: we are making the case. I just don't think it
Speaker 2: is fair for people to get upset at certain populations
Speaker 2: for not voting for Democrats when they don't put the
Speaker 2: work in to explain why they should.
Speaker 1: Right right. Last question for you.
Speaker 3: Is this.
Speaker 1: We have in next month is Voter Registration Day National
Speaker 1: Voter Registration Day that's happening on September nineteenth. What do
Speaker 1: people need to know? What can they learn from your organization?
Speaker 1: How do they get involved? Tell us all the ways?
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you so much so. National Voter Registration Day
Speaker 2: is so exciting. A few ways people can get involved
Speaker 2: one bare minimum. Please tell people in your community to
Speaker 2: register to vote and why they should. I think that
Speaker 2: is like way more impactful than people realize, and it
Speaker 2: can make a marginal difference because elections have been won
Speaker 2: and lost by one vote. Second, our website is www.
Speaker 2: Dot voter for meproject dot com. We are on I
Speaker 2: refuse to call it x. We are on the artist
Speaker 2: formally Twitter, Twitter, voter Formation, and we are on Instagram
Speaker 2: as well at Voterformation Project and you can follow us there.
Speaker 2: You can contribute at any one of those sites and
Speaker 2: give to us. That way we are able to spread
Speaker 2: the good word about democracy to the communities that need
Speaker 2: it most.
Speaker 3: We also are on Threads at voter Formation Project.
Speaker 2: We are on all the places, so please give us
Speaker 2: a follow, please support us if you would like. That
Speaker 2: would mean the world to us for our organization and
Speaker 2: I can't wait for Threads to get hashtags. That way
Speaker 2: I can concred myself from the artist formally known as Twitter.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Same same to Tenda, thank you so much for making
Speaker 1: the time to join WOKF and I hope that we
Speaker 1: will have you back because we got the most consequential
Speaker 1: election of our time coming up and people need to
Speaker 1: hear more from you. So appreciate you.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, dear friends on woke
Speaker 1: A app as always power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power yet woke and stay woke as fuck.