Hello, Alameda. Welcome to the Island City Beat Podcast. I'm your host, Angie Watson-Hajjem. You know that there are more than 16,000,000 people posting content regularly on TikTok? That's a lot of people.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Well, one of those 16,000,000 people is here with me today. His name is Keegan Tatum, and Keegan is a local Alamedan who holds a master's degree in political science from Columbia University. His video postings on TikTok focus heavily on politics, especially around the topic of the psychology of politics, a very interesting topic that we'll be diving in to today. We'll also get Keegan's views on the current political landscape that we are living in today. And with that, I want to welcome Keegan to the Island City Beat podcast.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Hi, Keegan.
Keegan Tatum:Hey, Angie. Thanks for having me.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It's so wonderful to have you. So you've been posting videos on TikTok for just about a year and a half or so, not not a very long time. And on TikTok alone, you have more than 67,000 followers, like a million, over a million likes. So people are really digging what you're putting out there. You really have a great following.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:And I'm just gonna ask you, like, what inspired you to start posting videos on TikTok? How did that come to be?
Keegan Tatum:Yeah. So I've wanted to be in political media since I was about 19 years old. I mean, it's the whole reason I did my undergrad at Syracuse because it's like a really good broadcast journalism place. Right? And I had actually been doing, like, my attempt at the weekly news commentary thing on YouTube.
Keegan Tatum:I attempted that for a little while, and I I felt like, ugh, I'm not really contributing much to this conversation. And I was burning out, and I wasn't having fun with it. So I took a step back, and I was like, okay. How can I actually add to the conversation from, you know, regarding politics from, like, a left perspective? And I went back to what really fascinated me, especially in grad school, which was the psychology of politics.
Keegan Tatum:Not a lot of people talk about it, and I felt like this is something that I can do to actually add to this space. And that also fascinates me. And, hey. What do you know? I'm not burning out as much.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. So we say the psychology of politics. What do you mean by that exactly? What are we talking about?
Keegan Tatum:We're talking about my fascination is with what differentiates people on the right versus people on the left. So personality differences, perceptual differences. We're talking neurological differences.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So talk to me a little bit more about this. You're saying that the brain actually looks a little different, functions differently when it's on a head of a person who that is liberal compared to someone who is more conservative. I mean, the talk to me a little bit about how those two brains see the world differently.
Keegan Tatum:Mhmm. So it's I would actually say that the biggest difference is emotional, but there are brain differences. So for example, the amygdala, which is best known as being the part of the brain that responds to fear, is not only larger, but it is more active in right wing people. So why is it that they're scared of things that, quite frankly, nobody needs to be scared of? I mean, immigrants commit crime at a lower rate than native born Americans.
Keegan Tatum:Ain't no reason to be afraid of immigrants. Like, if you added a a 10,000,000 immigrants, our crime rate would go down. So, like, why are they scared? Well, it's because they're not properly managing their overly responsive fear receptor in their brain. Another difference is ..
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Let me ask you a question.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Are they less likely to take risks because of the fear?
Keegan Tatum:So risk taking behavior. I I haven't really seen data on if somebody's more likely to take risks. That's that I think that's more of an emotional management thing. Are you thinking about more in terms of, like, being open minded to new ideas? Because that's certainly a difference between people on the right and people on the left.
Keegan Tatum:People on the right will stick with what they're familiar with. Even if it sucks because they'll take the devil that they know over the devil that they don't know. So people on the right are are rated as, again, we're talking on average being much more closed minded.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Yeah. You know, I was talking about risk. I'm thinking like bungee jumping or, you know, flying off airplanes and things like that. If conservatives tend to you know be more cautious as you know just in their regular living their life and I'm just wondering if there was some data around that.
Keegan Tatum:I haven't seen any data on that but what comes to my mind immediately is people who are sociopathic who are much more risk taking that as and psychopaths as well, don't quite analyze what could be the consequences of their actions, and so they typically are a lot more, risk taking. And the small portion of the population that sociopaths and psychopaths make up, they are overwhelmingly far right people. Mhmm. There's another difference which is the anterior cingulate cortex, and I'll say that there's less gray matter in our right wing friends here, I'd like to read to you a list of things that the, anterior cingulate cortex does. So just plays a wide variety in automatic autonomic functions such as regulating blood pressure and heart rate as well as rational cognitive functions such as reward anticipation, decision making, empathy, and emotion.
Keegan Tatum:The anterior cingulate cortex plays a role in our emotional intelligence. And I again, I wanna get back to emotions because the biggest difference between people on the right and people on the left is not cognitive intelligence, though people on that are left leaning are more cognitively intelligent. It's actually emotional intelligence. So being able to okay. I have a fear.
Keegan Tatum:I I feel fear, but being able to properly respond to that fear. Is this fear reasonable, for example, or does it completely control you? Other emotional intelligences such as compassion and empathy. Well, if you're not as emotionally intelligent, you're probably gonna be less compassionate and empathetic. And quite frankly, if you've ever talked with a conservative let's get real.
Keegan Tatum:They're kinda lacking in those two things. It's that classic saying, republican doesn't understand a problem until it affects them personally. And it also means that people here. Hold on. So so sorry.
Keegan Tatum:Another implication of this anterior cingulate cortex difference is actually trying to process your emotions instead of just avoiding them. You ever notice how many conservatives just avoid difficult emotions, whether it's the difficult emotion of America being criticized or the possibility,
Keegan Tatum:Angie, that they might be wrong about something. You ever notice how often a right winger will just immediately try to deflect or distract? And it's because they're trying to avoid the difficult emotion of I'm wrong. This is scary. I'm being unreasonable, these kinds of things.
Keegan Tatum:Emotional intelligence, man, it's a huge difference.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. So my question too about this is that is this kind of is it biological? Is it in the environment? Like when children are born, when they're young, is it already set like they're going to be more conservative or more liberal? Or is that just something that kind of happens in just in living their life and the people who are around them?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:There are people who are taking care of them, teaching them? Is there any work about it?
Keegan Tatum:It's both. It's like almost everything. It's that nuanced it's both. It's to what extent? That's the really interesting thing for me.
Keegan Tatum:So I think, like I personally have always leaned towards nurture over nature. So I don't know, maybe it's sixtyforty, maybe it's seventythirty. That's kind of how I think about it. But if you grow up in an environment that's, you know, very fear based, you know, maybe it's a strongly right wing religious household, you're gonna exercise your brain in that way, and it's gonna teach you to respond to certain stimuli in certain ways. It's gonna and if your parents don't process their emotions or say you're a young boy and, every man in your life is too insecure to try to work through their emotions, and so the only emotion they really express is anger, you're gonna pick that up.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Keegan Tatum:So the I would say and, of course, you know, we know that if you just have books in the house, your kid is more likely to be intelligent. You don't even have to read your kid. I mean, that's obviously better, and it will make them more intelligent. But, you know, just having books in the house makes Yeah. Makes it more likely that your kid will do turn out to be more intelligent.
Keegan Tatum:But you also have to keep in mind that, like, if people have a predisposition towards fear, They're probably going to pass on genetics Mhmm. Where there's a predisposition to fear, and then the environment is fearful in part because of that predisposition. The way that I see it is, the way that Jonathan Haidt in the book, The Righteous Mind put it, I think he put it best, which is that nature and genetics are a rough draft, and your experiences and your environment act as edits over time. So in terms of intelligence, for example, right, so you could be you know, if 100 is the most intelligent Albert Einstein genius ever and zero is the unfortunate opposite, you could have a natural range between forty seventh percentile and seventieth percentile, and it's your environment that determines which number you are specifically.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Mhmm. Okay. Is fast. Yeah.
Keegan Tatum:Oh, I know. Right? So I'd like to read another bit of about the anterior cingulate cortex. Let's remember, people on the left have more gray matter and more activity in this part of the brain than people on the right. Functions include compassion, empathy, taste, perception, motor control, self awareness, cognitive function, interpersonal experience, and awareness of homeostatic emotions such as hunger, pain, and fatigue.
Keegan Tatum:I think that one of the things I hope people notice after they listen to this is, like, wow. There's some there's some self aware differences. I mean, don't get me wrong. People not always the best in terms of self awareness, but, man, when you talk with somebody on the right, on average, they'll be a lot less self aware, especially men. God, I can't tell you how often these conservative men are like, I I'm not ruled at all by emotion.
Keegan Tatum:Men are less emotional. Conservatives are less emotional. And then there were, like, entire politics is completely dominated by emotion, whether it's fear of immigrants or or or oversensitivity to disgust, which is a which is a strong predictor of being transphobic or homophobic. It's amazing, man.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I wonder about the topic of creativity because it does seem that people who are musicians and artists and writers and creative types, they they tend to be more progressive, more liberal. Is there something also around the differences in the brain structure when it comes to imagination, creativity, that kind of thing?
Keegan Tatum:Yes. So I I don't know specifically about, like, brain differences, but I could tell you personality differences. Yes. So this is going back actually to open mindedness. So openness to new experiences or open mindedness more broadly is a pretty big predictor of both being more left leaning and being more artistic.
Keegan Tatum:This is actually a finding that dates back decades that people on the left are more artistic. I think part of it comes from you know, you kinda have to think in a little differently to say something that's like profound or different or have a new way of expressing something, have a new way of painting, a new form of music. And if your mind is more rigid, people on the right are more mentally rigid, less cognitively flexible, you're less likely to be creative. I I feel like the connection is pretty obvious. I don't really have to say too much about it.
Keegan Tatum:I I think it's kind of obvious.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:This really, really is so fascinating, and people listening are probably thinking, wow. Okay. Now I do wanna go on because we have a lot of different things to talk about. But if people wanna know more about this, these differences and, you know, and and how, you know, liberals and and conservatives, how they interpret the world and how they're in the world. Are there, authors, books that you can, share with people?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:They wanna know more about this research and look into it more for themselves.
Keegan Tatum:I'd say the best book for both beginners to political psychology as well as people that are well versed in it would be Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind, h a I d t, The Righteous Mind. It's about ten years old, but, it is spot on.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Great,
Keegan Tatum:So that would be the one that I recommend. If you wanna delve into something like authoritarianism, I would recommend the works of Bob Altmeyer. He wrote a lot of really good books on it. He is the leading researcher on it. Another great one is a 2003 paper.
Keegan Tatum:Here's what you type into Google. Okay? JOST, j o s t, 02/2003, conservative social cognition. It's a big, big study. It is rather dense.
Keegan Tatum:You'll have to skip some pages because it's just data, just proving that the data proves what they're saying. But it's a wonderful look at a bunch of different areas of research that could teach you so very much about people, particularly on the right.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Wow. Something definitely to for me, personally, I like to to kind of vent to this a little bit more. But, Kiki, I wanna talk to you now about the political turmoil, the political life that we are experiencing now in this country. And I wanna Yeah.
Keegan Tatum:We're doing great, aren't we?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. I wanna go back to the November. And, you know, Trump actually we were talking about this before our interview who actually increased the number of voters who are people of color, Hispanics, young people. What did Trump get right, and what did Democrats get so wrong in November?
Keegan Tatum:Mhmm. Wow. That's a very big question. I thought a lot more before this about what Democrats got wrong, but there are some distinct advantages that Trump had, because he was facing the opponents that he was facing. And that is that the Republicans, they might be liars.
Keegan Tatum:They might be totally full of BS, but at least they try to represent their voters. The Republicans do not have the same problem fundamentally that the Democrats have, which is that the Republicans can both represent their money to donors, the rich, the billionaires, the old money, giant corporate tycoon people, while also representing racism, xenophobia, fear, transphobia. The Democrats can't quite do that. The Democrats can either represent their corporate donors, their big money donors, or they can represent the interests of their voters. And, unfortunately, they chose wrong, and we have to deal with the consequences of that.
Keegan Tatum:I would say that's the biggest advantage that Trump has in addition to all the money that's poured into right wing media, but we're gonna talk about that later. Right?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Different different one talk about that.
Keegan Tatum:So so why don't we get into blaming Democrats, which which we need to do, man? We're gonna do more of an autopsy in this podcast than they ever did after their election losses. So, I'd like to start fundamentally with a pattern in the twenty first century. Okay? So Al Gore, 2000.
Keegan Tatum:He was the more moderate candidate. He lost. John Kerry was the more moderate candidate. He lost. John McCain was the more moderate candidate.
Keegan Tatum:He lost. Mitt Romney was the more moderate candidate. He lost. Hillary Clinton was the more moderate candidate. She lost.
Keegan Tatum:Joe Biden was the more moderate candidate. And during a crisis, crises come in two forms. There's external threats like nine eleven, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in which case the American people rally behind the president, get all patriotic. The second one is something like economic crashes or COVID. Kinda had a little bit of both during COVID.
Keegan Tatum:In that in in those cases, in the next election, the party of the president gets wiped out, obliterated, waxed. That didn't happen. Joe Biden was less than a 100,000 votes away from losing. He historically underperformed. It is arguably the greatest underperformance in the history of presidential elections.
Keegan Tatum:Let that sink in. Yeah. Kamala Harris, 2024, more moderate candidate. She lost. Moderates are not more electable.
Keegan Tatum:This isn't the nineties anymore. We really need to grow out of that kind of thinking. Angie, I want you to I want you to hold me to this. Okay? Wanna keep coming back to what can we do.
Keegan Tatum:It's not just about criticizing Democrats and the leadership and saying, well, they just need to do better. There's something that we can do as well. And one thing that we can do is accept the truth that moderates are not more electable. The two biggest winners of presidential elections in the twenty first century are Barack Obama, who ran the most populist progressive campaign not only in my lifetime, but in many, many decades. I mean, you have to go back to the sixties to find somebody who, in terms of their rhetoric, in terms of their campaign, was the most populous progressive.
Keegan Tatum:And he had the biggest election wins. Donald Trump is the other biggest winner. And while he's full of can I curse?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I don't think so.
Keegan Tatum:He's full of BS. How about that? Donald Trump, obviously, tenuous relationship with the truth, but at least he pretends to be a populist. At least he pretends to address the issues that that working class voters think affects them.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:But, Keegan, I had a few question here. So I'm confused about something because I hear you're saying that the moderates on the Democratic side or even On
Keegan Tatum:both sides.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Don't don't don't win. But then again, one of the questions that, you know, people pollsters were asking voters after the November is, like, why didn't you stick to the Democratic party? You voted for Biden. You voted for Obama. What happened?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:A lot of people were saying, well, Democrats, they got too liberal. They moved too far to the left. But you're saying so I hear you saying, though, that that's what wins. So I'm I'm confused. So who who really does the you know, the prize of the Democratic Party?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Is it the more moderate person or is it the person who is more liberal? But then people are saying we don't want that.
Keegan Tatum:Sure. So the polling I saw actually indicated that the the the top two reasons why people did not come out and vote for the Democrats, number one, by far, was Gaza. Because it's time to call it a genocide. Joe Biden full throat supported the genocide, and Kamala Harris made the mistake of not differentiating herself on that. That was a big thing that kept especially progressive young people from voting for Kamala Harris.
Keegan Tatum:And the second reason was that Joe Biden did not do enough to combat inflation. This was a big mistake for the Kamala Harris campaign. So Kamala Harris was at her most popular when she was talking about cracking down on the corporation's price gouge in our groceries. As soon as she abandoned
Angie Watson-Hajjem:that about that for just, like, two weeks, and then it went away.
Keegan Tatum:That's exactly right. And when was she at her most popular? After two weeks of talking about that. When did she start sinking in the polls? As soon as she abandoned that.
Keegan Tatum:It's ironic that that's the same mistake she actually made. I was gonna say 2020, primary election, but she didn't even make it to to Iowa, the first state. So 2019 is that she start she came out hot, man. She was running on Medicare for all. Yeah.
Keegan Tatum:And I I don't know what happened. I did some consultants got in her ears ears. I don't know, man. But she abandoned Medicare for all, and immediately her campaign tanked. This is part of the democrats', like, brain rot is that they keep thinking that, oh, we just need to pretend we're progressive enough to get those people on our side, and then we'll just tack to the right as soon as the general election because the American, voter wants the more moderate candidate even though his shows that's not true.
Keegan Tatum:If people say in polls, like, oh, the Democrats are too liberal. First off, I question, who's saying that? Are Republican voters saying that? Who are gonna vote Republican anyway? The the the truth of the matter is this is something that voter ..
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I actually heard a voter the other day on NPR, the Forum Radio Broadcast, and she was a Democrat, and she had already always voted the ticket. And she said that maybe she wasn't saying her personally, that was her thoughts, but she was saying the Democrats, they went too far left.
Keegan Tatum:I'm gonna be frank. If you keep watching media, this says it to everyone. If you're watching media that says the moderates are more electable, you gotta turn them off, man. This is coming back to what we can do because the his the history is the history, man. Like, you just can't deny moderates are not more electable.
Keegan Tatum:You can't deny. So if somebody says that, I mean, I disagree with them. The what's one of the things I studied at Columbia was how few Americans understand, like, what liberalism is, like, what that word actually means, how few Americans, like, are able to process right versus left. What people want is for you to represent their interests. And right now, the word liberal has been corrupted by the right wing propaganda machine to be, like, intellectual upper 10% elitist snobs.
Keegan Tatum:Unfortunately, there is some truth to that. But if somebody says they were too I mean, what? Kamala Harris wasn't running on Medicare for all. Was she supposed to be harsher towards immigrants? That stuff didn't work.
Keegan Tatum:You're not going to you're not going to get moderate Republicans. Like, they don't exist anymore. Kamala Harris, another big mistake she made was she spent more time with Liz Cheney than she did talking about the minimum wage. We've raised the minimum wage since I was in middle school. I'm 30.
Keegan Tatum:Like, what? How do you not go to the interests of working class people? Yeah. Huge mistake. Huge mistake.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So Bernie Sanders definitely seems to be a champion of the working class people.
Keegan Tatum:And he's the most popular politician in America.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. But he didn't get the nomination. I guess because so many people, like you were saying, that their their fears, like, we can't, you know, elect someone so progressive. We have to stick to the moderate.
Keegan Tatum:Exactly.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Keegan Tatum:Yes. That's see that see, that's you took the words right out of my brain. It people voted out of fear. We all knew that Joe Biden is a career politician. Dude's been running for president longer than I've been alive.
Keegan Tatum:Like, we all know that he's somebody that cares more about having power than he does about representing us. It was a mistake to elect him over Bernie, to nominate him over Bernie. And, I'm personally very surprised and disappointed and made more cynical by the fact that more moderate voters did not look at Hillary Clinton's loss and go, wow. Maybe moderates aren't more electable. We made a mistake in selecting the moderate.
Keegan Tatum:All of the data showed that Bernie was a more electable candidate than both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden because he was more popular with independents, and he was more popular and more motivating to the people that have low voter turnout, young people, for example. It was a mistake. This is one of the things, like, coming back to what can we do. If you're a pragmatic voter, it is now the smart thing to go with the most populist progressive candidate who talks about affordability, who talks about rent, who talks about increase in the minimum wage, who talks about student loan debt, and actually has the credibility to back up the talk. Mhmm.
Keegan Tatum:And and it is it is no longer more pragmatic to pick the candidate that you think will appeal to moderate Republicans. There are no moderate Republicans left. This isn't the nineties anymore. We need to update our way of thinking, Angie. This is so frustrating.
Keegan Tatum:I just want people to update their way of thinking. Barack Obama was the big winner, guys. Like, he was the most populist candidate that we've had in my lifetime. And he won big time.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Twice.
Keegan Tatum:Twice. Yeah, twice.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So are there any people out there today that you think, wow, I like their message. Well, I think they could be someone that could motivate, inspire people. Wow, I think I could vote for them for president. Is anybody out there right now on the political landscape that you're looking at with, you
Keegan Tatum:know I'm very heartened by Zoran Mamdani. Oh, yeah. He's not a naturalized citizen, so he can't run for president. But if we're talking about, you know, talking about affordability, like, he is fantastic. He's got good game online.
Keegan Tatum:He's great with the media. He's very charismatic. You know? Angie, I'd love to tell you that that every American sits down and goes with the candidate that, on terms of policy, is the best choice, but not, dude. We're like a high school country.
Keegan Tatum:Like, we're a bunch of high schoolers that want the most popular charismatic person that we like a lot. So much of it is a popularity contest, and he has that kind of charisma. But the person I'm really looking at is AOC. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has the online game. She's young.
Keegan Tatum:She's got a lot of energy. She's got a very likable positive vibe, and she not only speaks to the issues that affect us, climate change, loan debt, minimum wage, health care, anything you could think of, the need for infrastructure. Right? She's right on all the policy, but she also points her finger at the problem, at the people that are screwing us over. This was another big flaw with democratic campaigns over the last, I don't know, years and years and years.
Keegan Tatum:Certainly, 2024, 2020, and 2016. Donald Trump and the Republicans, they point their finger at an enemy. It's a lie that immigrants are an enemy. It's a lie that trans people or trans athletes are an enemy. The real enemy is the super wealthy people that have taken all of the economic gains for longer than I've been alive.
Keegan Tatum:And as we saw with Barack Obama's campaigns, if you point your finger at the people that are actually causing the problem, you're gonna get a lot more traction than with a politician who points their finger and scapegoats people who aren't the problem. So the fact that AOC not only identifies the solutions, but the enemy to unite against. America is angry, dude. We are an angry political landscape right now, and you can't talk about how we all need to just sing Kumbaya and get along anymore. That's not gonna win.
Keegan Tatum:You gotta you gotta tap into the anger.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I think AOC I don't think she's quite old enough to run for president, but maybe in the No.
Keegan Tatum:She will be.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. She she might
Keegan Tatum:She already is. I think she's already 36.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Oh, is she? Okay. Well, I'll time to
Keegan Tatum:That is actually a worry that I have is that the older generations Mhmm. Will be like, oh, she's too young. She's too young. Can't can't can't win too young. That's something I'm concerned about.
Keegan Tatum:I think that's actually the biggest hurdle. That and, of course, the media bias against her.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Let's talk about the media and Yes. How the conservatives are definitely winning the game when it comes to getting the message out there and just using the power of the media. And Democrats are just really lousy. Talk to me about that. What's happening here?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Why is this such a disparity?
Keegan Tatum:I wanna focus more on online because if you look at election day streams that were political, they were overwhelmingly conservative ones in terms of the amount of viewership. Now some of that could be that lefty shows are typically smaller. So there are probably more lefty creators that if you were to combine, you know, everyone that's on my level, we'd probably have more views than people on the right wing, but all the big shows are right wing. Here's why. The Republicans and their donors work with online new and new media.
Keegan Tatum:Democrats don't do that. To Angie, dude, at my level, I guarantee you that if I was right wing, I'd be raking in that that sweet right wing sugar daddy donor money. Alright? I'd be I would be getting some billionaire, some billionaire cash, and I'd have a republican on my show every now and again reaching out to me, making sure that they can blast me out because the republicans are a lot better at uniting. And here's one of the reasons why.
Keegan Tatum:There is no level of right wing that is too right wing for the Republicans. And you don't have to go far to the left to be too left for the Democrats. The Democrats do not reach out to us. The Democrats do not get us any funding. One of the problems that people like me have is, like, I gotta work part time just to keep my my my head above water on rent.
Keegan Tatum:If I was right wing, they would make sure that I had enough money at the level that I'm at. And I'm not a huge creator. Right? I'm not, you know, million views every day kind of level. But they would have been been funding me or giving me advertiser connections so that I wouldn't have to work part time in addition, which means more content. So this is the big problem right now. And part of it is because a lot of the the Democratic leadership is ancient and out of touch. And the donors that fund the Republican Party, they want the right wing, the fascist propaganda online to proliferate.
Keegan Tatum:But the Democratic donors, they're not gonna fund someone like me. I supported Bernie Sanders. They don't want somebody like me having a platform. So there's a huge in that.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:problem in I see. Wow.
Keegan Tatum:And it's a major disadvantage, and it all comes back to the money. And it all comes back to the problem of the money wants right wing policy. The money does not want left wing policy. Yeah. Inherent disadvantage.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Like, he was saying that if you were a conservative young person out there with your platform, you would have such a greater widespread popularity, something where people would be knowing about your message. You'd be rich probably.
Keegan Tatum:Probably. Oh, God.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. So that that's gotta be that's gotta be kind of frustrating for you.
Keegan Tatum:I don't know. I'm very confident that I'm gonna make this into a full time everyday job. I I'm I'm fairly confident in that. What's frustrating to me is that there's just no help for us whatsoever. It's more of they're not helping us as a group rather than I'm individually grievanced.
Keegan Tatum:I hope that's the healthy mindset to have.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So I do want to just go back, because I know that we're at the end of our interview. But I want to go back to just kind of talking a little bit more about this broken Democratic Party and trying to build it up. And you gave some really great insights into things that the party needs to do. I'm very curious about what you think about you're saying the Democratic Party is kind of ancient. We've a lot of older leaders in the party.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:We need new blood, I guess. But how do we get those new or younger people to hear what you're talking about and get on board?
Keegan Tatum:So we're right back to where I wanted to be. You're you're keeping me on track, which is what can we do? It's amazing to me that in European elections, if a party loses and loses badly and loses unexpectedly, their entire leadership gets decapitated. And that doesn't happen here. Why is Chuck Schumer, one of the most unpopular politicians in America, still in leadership?
Keegan Tatum:And you could say the same about Nancy Pelosi. Like her love her or hate her. She was the one of the faces of the party, she and was one of the main reasons that Republicans were able to to win congressional elections because they ran against her. So what do we do? The first thing we need to do is we need to vote for candidates that are anti corruption, people that don't take money from giant super PACs or or corporate PACs.
Keegan Tatum:Look towards the AOC level candidates. Those are the kinds of people that will inspire the low voter turnout kind of people. Young people, for example, you know, millennials have very low voter turnout. But when AOC kind of candidates are there, we turn out to vote. I would say that a big thing is if, you know, if you're in the older generations and you're not already, you know, flying the Bernie Sanders flag, Listen to the young people.
Keegan Tatum:Listen to what will actually motivate them. Please please please don't condescend to us as much. Like, we know a thing or two about what will get people like us to vote and and try to update your views because we live in a new era. We live in a new in in in the Trump, we are descending into fascism era. So run on anti corruption.
Keegan Tatum:That those that's that's the number one thing for me is anti corruption. Because if you can run on anti if you have an anti corruption candidate, that's the kind of person that actually motivates independents and low voter low turnout voters the best. You know, one of the lies that Trump told is he has a self funded campaign that won a lot of people over. It was a lie, but it won a lot of people over. Vote for populists.
Keegan Tatum:And if you're if you're a pragmatic moderate centrist, you need to understand moderates are not more electable. It's time to vote blue no matter who. You know, you guys have been telling us that we gotta that us progressives, we gotta vote blue no matter who when it's your moderate candidate. Well, they keep losing, so it's time for you to vote blue no matter who for our progressive candidates.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I know you don't have a crystal ball, but I would love to get your opinion on what you think is going to happen next year. We have our midterm elections in November. A lot of people are very angry. Anger sometimes brings people out.
Keegan Tatum:It does, yeah.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah, predictions of what you think might happen next year with all of this gonna happen?
Keegan Tatum:It's a really tough question because we don't know how bad the gerrymandering's gonna be. Yeah. I'm I'm happy that California's like, oh, yeah. Texas, think you you're gonna gerrymander? We're gonna gerrymander too.
Keegan Tatum:It's time for the Democrats to start playing a little dirty, man. It's time to start playing the Republicans game. You can't let them cheat and get away with it and then not do anything to fix it. This was a big flaw with Joe Biden is that he did not do the the anti gerrymandering voting rights, bill. It's I can I just say one thing before I before I get to the future predictions?
Keegan Tatum:I just like, how many progressives in this country said if we have Joe Biden instead of Bernie Sanders as the nominee, we're gonna get four years of very little done, and then we're just gonna get Trump two point o or somebody smarter, more competent, and even more evil fascist in in 2024. And all the centrists said that wasn't gonna happen, and that's what happened. Anyway, so what's gonna happen? Oh, boy. It's gonna depend on if the tariffs really cause an economic recession, which I think that there is a strong possibility of.
Keegan Tatum:It's gonna depend on if the Democrats can up their game for online. It's gonna depend on who's the face of the party. Is it gonna continue being the Chuck Schumers, or is it gonna be the AOCs and the Zoran Mamdanis? It's gonna depend on, if Trump continues to fall in the polling, which he does continue to to to do, the Epstein stuff is really hurting him. It's starting to really stick.
Keegan Tatum:Another frustration with the media. We knew about this association the whole time. Why was this not a big story a year and a half ago? Goddamn it, media. Goddamn it, media.
Keegan Tatum:Listen. If you're if you're watching legacy media, turn them off, man. They failed to hold Trump accountable. Come to new media people like me. Sorry.
Keegan Tatum:I I I'm sorry for the shameless plug right there.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:That's OK You can plug. I'm a fan.
Keegan Tatum:So I'm I'm I'm cautiously optimistic. I don't think it's gonna be a complete blowout because there are still these fundamental problems with the Democratic party. I mean, they're less popular now than they were before the election because they're just not fighting enough.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. You know, that's something that I was surprised by because I thought Democrats would come out and have more resistance against Trump. And I was talking to someone who said, yeah, I've gone to a couple of protests, people are really excited, enthusiastic, and they're angry. They want to do something. And then nothing happens from that.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Everyone just kind of goes back to their home and does their life. So I'm surprised there hasn't been a more concerted effort to fight back on some of the things that Democrats are just really hating about what they're saying in this country.
Keegan Tatum:Yeah. I mean, I'm Angie, I'm sure you've seen poll after poll after poll shows. A, the Democratic voters want their party to be more progressive, and, b, they're really pissed off at the leadership for not fighting Trump tooth and nail. And I think that the problem is that, you know, these multimillionaires in congress and the senate, they're so out of touch. They're still stuck in, like, Reagan era brain where they think America is right wing, whereas what the truth is is that America is very polarized.
Keegan Tatum:The Republicans are very good at energizing their base and getting a high voter turnout from a smaller portion of the population than the Democratic base. But the Democrats ignore their base, insult their base, mock their base, stick their middle finger up to their base, and they don't motivate them. And and and the other, you know, the other thing is the fundamental problem with with these super wealthy it's the Chuck Schumers of the party where their job is to represent their donors. Okay? The donors, they don't bribe people into being on their side.
Keegan Tatum:The donors invest in candidates that already agree with them. That's why Chuck Schumer's at the top because he already agrees with them. Donald Trump ain't threatening the donors. So what does Chuck Schumer have to do? Chuck Schumer's job is is is to stop per more progressive candidates from happening because then there's actually a threat to the donors.
Keegan Tatum:Fundamental problem with the Democrats, man.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:A lot of problems. Keegan, what's next for you? I know you have this great platform on TikTok and Instagram as well. You're doing a lot out there. What what can we see from you in the near future?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Future? What are your great plans for yourself and the work that you're doing in the world?
Keegan Tatum:I got some people encouraging me to write a book. I it's what's crazy the craziest thing that's happened to me in the past year and a half is I actually had an independent publisher come out and be like, hey. You should write a book, which is it's just wild. That's just wild that somebody approached me for that. But right now, what I'm what I'm doing is, you know, I'm I'm I'm doing my weekly research so that I can make more videos.
Keegan Tatum:And, and you can find me on TikTok and Instagram as well as YouTube. Name is Keegan Tatum, k e g a n, Tatum, t a t u m. But another project that I have is not political at all. Is so I really like this HBO show from about twenty years ago. It's called sex in the city and I absolutely love this show and I decided that I'm going to make a YouTube kinda overanalyzing every episode of sex in the city, and that's set to come out early next year.
Keegan Tatum:So that's gonna be called I couldn't help but wonder the YouTube page is already set up, but, videos will start going up, early next year. I wanna I wanna complete season one before But I start releasing in terms of the politics, it's it's about getting them videos out every month.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Keegan, I have so enjoyed our time together. You're a fascinating person with a lot of ideas and insights and just really appreciate what you're doing.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:And I wish you the very best with all the things that you're doing, whether it's going be a book or whatever, movies, all that good stuff. I know that you will continue to, find much success. Thank you so much for being part of our Island City Beat podcast. It's been a great pleasure.
Keegan Tatum:Well, thanks for having me on, Angie, I really appreciate your kind words. This has been a lovely day.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Oh, great. Thank you. And thank you all for listening to our podcast. Please come back and join us again for another edition of Island City Beat podcast. Until then, I'm your host, Angie Watson-Hajjem.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Take care, everyone. Goodbye.