Zohran Mamdani’s Social Media Triumph
On The Time of Monsters: Greg Sargent on the New York mayoral candidate’s peerless digital efforts.

The Time of Monsters podcast features Nation national-affairs correspondent Jeet Heer’s signature blend of political culture and cultural politics. Each week, he’ll host in-depth conversations with urgent voices on the most pressing issues of our time.
Writing in The New Republic, Greg Sargent called attention to Zohran Mamdani’s highly
effective media strategy which has allowed him to reach many voters that have been drifting
away from the Democratic Party, especially young people and immigrants. In punchy, short
videos, Mamdani has offered an optimistic message that celebrates big city life and diversity
while showing how government policies can help make life better. I talked to Greg about the lessons
of the Mamdani campaign. We also talk about strategies for investigating the Jeffrey Epstein scandal,
a subject he wrote about here.
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Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, attends an endorsement event from the union DC 37 on July 15, 2025.
(Spencer Platt / Getty Images)Writing in The New Republic, Greg Sargent called attention to Zohran Mamdani’s highly effective media strategy, which has allowed him to reach many voters that have been drifting away from the Democratic Party, especially young people and immigrants. In punchy, short videos, Mamdani has offered an optimistic message that celebrates big-city life and diversity while showing how government policies can help make life better.
I talked to Greg about the lessons of the Mamdani campaign. We also talked about strategies for investigating the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, a subject he wrote about here.
Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.

The Time of Monsters podcast features Nation national-affairs correspondent Jeet Heer’s signature blend of political culture and cultural politics. Each week, he’ll host in-depth conversations with urgent voices on the most pressing issues of our time.
Norman Podhoretz, one of the founding fathers of neoconservatism, died on December 16 at
age 95. His legacy is a complex one, since in recent decades neoconservatism has been
supplanted in many ways by American First conservatism. But many aspects of Podhoretz’s
influence still play a shaping role on right. I take up Podhoretz’s career with David Klion (who
wrote an obituary for the pundit for The Nation) and the historian Ronnie Grinberg, who had
discussed Podhoretz in her book Write Like a Man.
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