Podcast / The Time of Monsters / Aug 4, 2025

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 with Jeet Heer
The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

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.

Zohran Mamdani’s Social Media Triumph w/ Greg Sargent
byThe Nation Company LLC

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.

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 with Jeet Heer
The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

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.

The Living Legacy of Norman Podhoretz w/ David Klion and Ronnie Grinberg
byThe Nation Company LLC

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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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Subscribe to The Nation to Support all of our podcasts

Jeet Heer

Jeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.

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