Latest / The Nation Podcasts / Zohran Mamdani’s Social Media Triumph | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

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Zohran Mamdani’s Social Media Triumph | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer · The Nation Podcasts

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: The old world is dying.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: The new world struggles to reborn.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now is the time of monsters.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: With those words from Gramsci, I welcome you to the time of monsters podcast.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm teach here of the nation magazine, which is the sponsor of this podcast.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: The podcast is widely available on all platforms and some radio stations.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this podcast, because we deal with politics, things have been very bleak.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: for a long time now.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I, that occasionally there is some good news that I would be a miss if I didn't mention it.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: We, I see, are seeing some progress on the Democratic Party side in terms of figure out how to combat Trump.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think this can be seen both in the sort of campaign that Zoran Memdani is running to be mayor of New York.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And also some of the scandals that are now engulfing the Trump administration really to Jeffrey F. Dean.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: To talk about both matters, I'm very happy to have on a returning guest Greg Sargent who's a staff writer for the New Republic where he also does a podcast The Daily Blast and Greg is always a very acute and observant commentator on American politics.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was especially taken by a column he just did above Mamedani, looking at his success in terms of messaging, which I think has broader political lessons.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So first of all, Greg, welcome to the program.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me on.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so let's talk about this column that you wrote because I think that it a different take.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's been a lot regime of Mamedani, but a lot of it rehearses sort of a familiar ground, either in terms of his politics or the controversies around him.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I actually thought that you had fresh observations in terms of how he was able to like win a really unexpected victory in the Democratic primary and now seems to be pulling actually quite well.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, so what I did was I got very curious about why his videos were doing so well and
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: We should note that his videos are really unpaid, which is to say, these are not ads.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: These are just social media videos that the Momdani campaign makes, often in settings like on sidewalks or in coffee shops or similar.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And very similar to how many average people make videos.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: He does them at a high level of professionals.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: He is a very good team.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: but he's getting extraordinary reach with these videos.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I talked to his video people at some length and in some depth about what they're doing and the answers were very interesting.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I should say right off the bat that they're getting really surprising penetration on Instagram, which is really an innovation for a campaign, I think, at least in certain ways.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So here's a good example.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mamdaani recently released a video announcing that he was taking a vacation in his childhood home
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uganda, and he did some really weird stuff on there, at least striking stuff where he mocked right wing trolls for telling him to go back to Africa.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: He joked that his return there showed that he's listening to critics telling him to go back to Africa.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he even offered the New York Post, the Murdoch tabloid in New York, suggestions for headlines that were mocking of his trip to Africa, right?
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like, for instance, he proposed MIA, mom, daddy in Africa,
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And said, you know, in Salab, please put them on your front pages, which is a pretty remarkable thing to do to tweak the right.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Got four point five million views on Instagram, fifty six percent among people who weren't following mom, donnie on the messaging site.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's getting amazing penetration.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you want to mention like Instagram, you know, he's a very popular social media site.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's like mainly used for personal things.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I know people use it to, you know, show pictures of their meals or new dresses and suits that they bought.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is not normally where like political messaging spreads.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly right so I think that the fact that he's able to like have such success there to buy my would maybe indicate that he's reaching people that I'm probably following politics I think that's exactly it and I should note that his campaign takes pride in this that they were actually able to shift in their direction areas of the city that went towards Trump now we all know the the story there Donald Trump made these alarming alarming for Democrats and liberals
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: inroads with non-white working class people, including some immigrant communities.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was very prevalent in New York City, obviously he didn't win New York City, but he made these inroads among these constituencies that are normally thought of as democratic.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so the Maldani campaign was able to pull some of those people back in some big numbers.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And those are exactly the types of people we're talking about, right?
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're low information voters,
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're not paying close attention to politics.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're working class.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Many of them are immigrants.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's able to get to them with political messaging.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: That seems very personal.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's sort of the extraordinary thing about what he's doing.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to read a quote from a tech writer named Mike Maznik, who really I thought captured the point that you just made a few minutes ago.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: He said,
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: quote, people spend a lot of time on short-form video apps looking to be entertained by real people.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mondani's been able to produce political content that meets that need.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: There you have it.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: People go to the Instagram to hang out and watch funny social media videos of cats, right?
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And people cooking.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so there you get this guy, Mom Donnie talking about traffic on thirty-fourth street and permits for vendors and really stuff that you wouldn't think goes viral and he makes a go viral.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I think that's a point really worth considering, especially about the sort of like low information voters.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that one thing that has repeatedly taken Democrats by surprise is Donald Trump's ability to reach those voters.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, I think if one steps back a little bit, you know, like Donald Trump's celebrity came from the show the apprentice, which had like a kind of wide reach, and among people who don't like watch CNN, right?
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who don't like all the news obsessively or read the New York Times?
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then Donald Trump also, like throughout his political career, has kind of pursued media celebrity in sort of like tabloid form, always wanting to be in the New York Post, but and even the National Enquire, but also like, you know, going on professional wrestling where he was actually a fixture.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: for many years.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Donald Trump prior to his official political career had actually created a public persona that had a very wide reach and he had an identity with voters who again are not reading the New York Times, right?
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And are not like looking at political platforms but have seen this guy many times have a some sort of sense of his personality and came to
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: view him as someone that many of them felt that they liked or could trust.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, I think the political dilemma of this kind of like media age, a very fragmented media age, how do you reach those people?
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And not to replicate Donald Trump's strategy, which I think is perhaps a one-off and Capy.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: One certainly hasn't seen any other Republican media of the view what Trump has done.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that, I'm not even showing that there are like other ways of reaching those voters.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I think the key point you're making is about the culture, right?
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Donald Trump's innovation as a politician was the extraordinary penetration into the culture that he gets.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is a real problem for Democrats precisely because that penetration gets to those types of voters we're talking about.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're sort of in the middle of this massive debate among Democrats right now about how to do that.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Much of the debate kind of turns on how do we use paid digital spots and non-traditional ways or creating a Joe Rogan of the left to use that silly cliche, right, to get that penetration that Donald Trump has gotten.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think Democrats recognized that whatever it is that Trump did, which is sort of hard to pin down.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's something Democrats have to be able to do.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mondani's campaign is very acutely aware of that as the challenge.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you watch the videos, you can see that they're thinking hard about how to turn him into a more ubiquitous figure in the culture.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: One advisor on the Mondani campaign that I spoke to Andrew Epstein, the campaign's creative director, said, if you are, quote, on your phone, you are going to see Zoron.
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the goal.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what Trump does, right?
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's everywhere at all times.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Democrats are not everywhere at all times.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're often not anywhere.
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's just interesting to me how Zoron is trying to crack that code.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's right.
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's actually interesting because I mean, normally prior to maybe the last year or two, I would have said the problem with Democrats is that they're going on with the press and CNN and not like, look, yeah, things like podcast or, you know, new media.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: The way Trump has was, but like, actually, I think even the last year, like it's become even worse than that because they're not even going on with the press.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: They don't seem to be like even doing like regular media as much as they use.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're off and missing in action.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in any case, I think some of the sort of like, you went to the aesthetic aspect.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's worth pointing out in, I'll link to your piece, which I would highly recommend for Greg's analysis.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then also, you include embedded in your piece, some of these videos.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's worth paying attention to the aesthetic of both like the sort of like the fast cut.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: The often show, you know, Memdani use a, you know, attractive young guy walking the streets.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they do have that kind of like TikTok aesthetic.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You are talk a little bit about that.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like how the aesthetic is adapted to the age that we're sure the aesthetic, it's interesting that you call it a TikTok aesthetic because that is very clearly what they're going for.
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I should say that the numbers on TikTok in addition to Instagram are quite good too.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: on over a million views at least ten videos.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Maznik, the tech writer I referenced earlier, told me that the key
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: metric here is consistency and so if this is a guy who can consistently get a million views or more on TikTok with messaging again about government and politics that's the essence of this that's so interesting he at one point he talks about for city council bills that would affect vending licenses and yet he's just sort of slips it in in this way that you don't really realize you're being taught
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because of the aesthetic, it's wrapped in this kind of street, you know.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: walking the streets, talking to vendors, talking to people, there are even parts where he says hi to people.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's, and it, but it, not if it feels forced, that's the thing about it that I think is, is hard to duplicate.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anyone can kind of say, well, just go out and do one of these, but to make them actually work and make them authentic, that's the, the key thing.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was very struck by the way by the constant use of food in these videos.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I lived in New York for a long time.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I grew up there and I actually used to if I could get personal for a second I had a thing I used to do with an old friend where we would walk through the city and just eat right
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: long walks and I'm talking when I say long I mean like really long like maybe at one point we went up to as high as five miles to the city six seven miles and it's an enormous pleasure to be able to stroll from one ethnic neighborhood to the next and sample different food as you're walking it's like the city's bounty you know like if you live in the York you have this amazing thing at your fingertips at all times and I think there's a celebratory tone to what Zauron's doing when he walks the streets and
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a video in little Haiti, he shoots, where he's eating different things at different places while walking on the streets.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's striking aesthetic that is really celebratory of New York's essence, I think, in a way that a lot of Democrats should pay attention to.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I mean, you bring up a couple of points there that I want to unpack a little bit.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of which is, I think one has to keep in mind the substance of the stuff that he's talking about, which I think is not unrelated to the popularity, it's not just a aesthetic matter.
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of these are the sort of Instagram TikTok aesthetic is like you talk about ordinary things of people, other people can relate to like food or clothing or walking the neighborhood.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: but he ties that in with substantive issues because they are tied in, like, you know, people do in part of the ordinary conversation, complain about traffic, you know, they complain about getting around the city.
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, like if he brings that up and then uses it to talk about bus lanes, then because relevant.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as you said, one of the pleasures of a great city like New York is the street food.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then one of his videos is, uh, hello inflation talking about the regulations that make how I'll check it more expensive than it should be.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's a very clever sort of mixture of the everyday vernacular topics that thrive on social media, but always linking them up with those substantive policy things and showing that there is an appetite for thinking about those issues if you address them in the right way.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a hundred percent and the substance is is is the aesthetic that I think you really touched on something very key there his advisors taught into me were really empathic about that point that it isn't just the aesthetic it isn't just the person
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: that they're putting front and center, although it's absolutely central that they're putting this person out there in the same way TikTok does, right?
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Instagram does just to go back to what we discussed before places like Instagram and TikTok are where you go to hang out with people, right?
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: You go there to watch people do cool stuff and to get to know people who you think are cool.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so he's basically that guy, but he's a politician.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought the halal inflation one that you cited was, and that by the way, I should note that was probably one of their biggest successes.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it just starts with him inside a halal vending truck talking to the guy about like what it's like to sell this stuff to people on the streets.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you live in New York, you encounter people like that every single day.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so you're encountering them again in this video.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then all of a sudden he's just telling you, by the way, the reason you're a plate of food at this cart is ten dollars instead of eight dollars is because
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're these government bottlenecks that are screwing things up.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so he's suddenly talking almost like, I don't know, and abundance agenda person, right, saying, you know, just basically saying, you know, by the way, all this stuff that you're experiencing in your everyday life really is just downstream of bad governing decisions.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's remarkable stuff.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's right.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And to hit on another point that you had made, which I want to unpack a little bit, is the settlement of sort of like enjoyment, which I think is very key.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's, again, both of the aesthetic message, but it's also a kind of political message.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think one way to think about this is that Donald Trump and the right offer a very dark vision of like urban America, you know, like American carnage.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: crime is out of control, you know, these democratic run cities.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think one of the things that you get from Mamdanis videos is that this is someone who enjoys vegan New Yorker, enjoys, you know, the things that the city has to offer and recognize the, you know, this is the reason why so many people live in New York, right?
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, the restaurant is not popular.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's too crowded.
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think this politics of joy or this politics of enjoyment is a very important part of the political message.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I should point out that there's a there's a subtext to what you're saying there about the dark mag of messaging about urban centers.
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mag of messaging is fun for maga.
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean like maga people they love it they thrill to it like so if Trump is out there calling New York a sewer pit and calling New Yorkers rats it's like very idea of entertainment.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's it's probably worth you know underscoring that Zoron is
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: counter-programming that.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's saying it's cool to live in a diverse world city that has people from all over the world that are doing all kinds of really interesting things.
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: and we can make it even more awesome.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the message.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, no, no.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's absolutely right.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think in your piece, you also bring in another aspect of this message, which is the enjoyment or appreciation of the diversity of the city.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's also a sort of countering the kind of dark magma message, which does have a lipid and low pleasure in the sort of thrill of like, ticking on groups that you don't like.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but in Mandani's case offering a counter message that does a great deliver in the city with so many different cultures.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And really a response, it kind of like this sort of zero sum racial politics that Trump has really revived in such a successful way.
• 17:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, like a different way of thinking about the story of immigration in America.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I hadn't thought of this until you just said all that, but if you think about that one video, right, the one with the New York Post where he talks about his trip to Uganda, he actually puts on the screen right wing trolling attacks on him, right?
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so he's sort of frontally presenting the thing you're talking about, which is that libidinal pleasure on the right of attacking groups like the ones that man done he belongs to, right?
• 18:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And at the same time, he's also sort of doing the social media thing of polarizing stuff, right?
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's essentially saying, I'm in their heads.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, Maggie loves the idea that Trump is in your head in my head, right?
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is something you see constantly on social media.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you say something negative about Trump, you'll get a million LOLs.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's totally living rent free in your head blah blah blah, right?
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so there's
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mamdan is kind of taking that and repurposing it for his own ends, isn't he?
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you really think about it, he's doing the social media thing of saying, check it out, we're doing so well, we're getting in their heads.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, and I do actually think that some of this sort of media overkill, which came like not just from the New York Post and Fox News, but to be honest, the New York Times.
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, and the Atlantic magazine, I think that it's also rebounded to M. Downey's advantage because he was able to use this to say, like, oh, look, I've gotten inside their heads.
• 19:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're worried about me.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for politicians, that can be a very strong sort of message.
• 19:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: It can, although I think probably, and I'm reasonably sure his people are aware of that as they pivot into the general action.
• 19:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, that was a summer video, right?
• 19:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, as they pivot into the general, I think they're going to tone that kind of thing down is my guess because they really do have to broaden as appeal to some of these other older New York constituencies like working class blacks and upper west side and upper east side Jews and and I guess even to some degree out of borrow whites to the degree that I don't know how many out of borrow whites are left in New York.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've lost touch with the city in many ways, but it's still, you know, there's still plenty.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's going to have to win some of them.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, a lot depends on what the what the what the field shakes out as, but I do think he'll probably tone down the types of appeals that, you know, deliberately provoke.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I mean, and again, I think the terminology is perhaps useful.
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's a kind of primary message that you use to get up your base in the primary and then maybe tone down some of that stuff in the general election.
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, having said that, I should also mention, like I think like the most recent polls I've sort of seen, do indicate that like, you know, now that he is the Democratic nominee, a lot of groups that hadn't been with him in the primaries are sort of coming on board.
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, rallying around the effective leader.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that that itself is worth thinking about it.
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But can we talk about like how this might play out in the sort of like broader democratic party?
• 21:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, obviously this is an exceptionally talented politician.
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think he also has the advantage of sort of like youth and of having a team that is more sort of digitally native and has adapted.
• 21:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But like how confident are you that the party can like learn lessons from this that can be more broadly applied?
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, and this guy is tremendously talented.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's clearly very charismatic, but when or lose, even if he loses, I think, at the end, that there will be lessons that Democrats can take from this campaign, from the digital approach, especially.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, look, obviously, certain things that Mombani is saying might not play in certain
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: districts and certain states in the same way that they play in New York.
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that's a secret.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like a lot of these swing district Democrats when their race is by a point and they have to be pretty moderate in many ways, but that doesn't mean you can't take this sort of approach that he's adopting and use it.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: As far as I can tell, I don't see why you couldn't use a similar approach to deliver
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: all sorts of messaging.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: The essential ingredient is actual authenticity, right?
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: We constantly talk about the need for Democrats to be more authentic and so forth, and often they just don't seem to heed that advice, but the key that seems to me to be that he's figured out that if you just talk authentically about what you actually believe,
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: than you can reach people.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not sure why Democrats centrist Democrats, moderate Democrats, can't do that effectively with their own ideas.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do you think?
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It seems like it's a lesson that many Democrats could repurpose.
• 22:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I do think that the value of like being more forced right and not seeing me like, you know, like you're making messages that have been like tested through posters is a good one.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think even for like centerist Democrats, I mean, like I mean, that term like to be to my mind is has some sort of ambiguity.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do think that like even they or I think especially they like might need to lean into the affordability issues that Meme Downey did.
• 23:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not just a matter of, you know, the media techniques, which are well worth borrowing, but I think also the emphasis on actual concrete daily life stuff.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that, yeah, I think it's certainly centers, Democrats can be talking, especially since Trump has made Medicare and Social Security, like Navigies.
• 23:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: If they put that as the foreground of what they're concerned with, then yeah, yeah, I do think that this can be duplicated.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It sure seems that way.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think if they were to get serious about that, you essentially take the general approach and I think you articulated this really well earlier, which is that the starting point is to talk about something that every day ordinary people experience all the time.
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the connection point.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the initial spark.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when he talks about traffic on thirty-fourth street for instance, he's just talking to people about something they experience every day and don't like, same with prices at a halal truck.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so I don't see why a centrist or moderate Democrat couldn't do that and then just talk authentically about what they actually think.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: about the reasons people are going through what they're going through.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think, well, I mean, yeah, no, I think it's worth talking about thinking this through.
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I mean, I think one thing that we're likely to see is rising like the price of coffee because of these tariffs on Brazil.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do think a center is never cut, you know, who might not share bipolar things, but could certainly do.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: and say, like, you know, like, I'm all for, you know, like, America, first trade policy, but like, you know, like, like, why is it making coffee works, but rather than creating jobs?
• 25:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, I think that sort of messaging has to be the key.
• 25:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do think, I mean, something that you and I have gone back and forth about, but like, I think that some of the more broader centrist messaging that sort of focused on defending democracy, brand the risk of being too abstract.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And connecting with real issues, but not connecting them with things that people can actually see in their daily lives.
• 25:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I certainly think that a video about like the rising price of coffee a video about, you know, somebody who's dependent on Medicare and can't get it now.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why was the line so long?
• 25:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why did you have to wait so long?
• 25:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, why can't my grandma call up social security exactly like a straight answer.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that you could easily see like you know you've you spent my grandmother spent forty five minutes on the phone with social security the other day and she didn't get us out of factory answer and she's trying to get her benefits check guess why that's happening see that guy Elon Musk
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 26:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And here's how we fix it.
• 26:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: We can easily fix it, but lunatics are in charge.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ideal logs are in charge.
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: You don't want the government to work for you.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, so I mean, I think that it's a ways of what centers can do this message.
• 26:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think they also involve the retooling or rethinking the way they approach these issues.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, yeah.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think they can do it within their own political framework and within, you know, the districts that they're running for.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it requires, I think it requires some actual thought in terms of, like, how does that you relate to, like, lived experience?
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which I think is the key to this type of media.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also, I think it's essential that you underscore the importance of affordability to, yeah, I'm Donnie's message.
• 27:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Again, substance being a really critical part of this.
• 27:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's, you'd think something that a lot of interest in moderate Democrats would rally around and really be willing to learn from.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: How often do we hear the popularists, as we call them, tell us that everything has to be brought back to the kitchen table.
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, I don't know if it's exactly the kitchen table, the price of your street foods and you're eating outside.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's the same, that impulse, I would think would be something that they would cheer.
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: One would hope so that, you know, especially since he both won the primary and he's looking pretty good for the general election.
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: They should think about the lessons that all this offers.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about this issue of how you reach voters who aren't plugged into politics and bring in like another thing that's in the news, which you've also written about.
• 28:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: which is a Jeffrey Epstein case.
• 28:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I've long felt this going back to when Epstein was first re-arusted that Democrats kind of made a mistake in not paying attention to this case and even trying to downplay it.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And writing off a lot of this stuff as conspiracy theories, which I have to say there are a lot of really crazy conspiracy theories about this.
• 28:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I do actually think they also have always been legitimate questions.
• 28:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: about the FCKs.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think more importantly, if we're in this thing about the broader politics, the FCKs for, you know, like a variety of, I think fairly obvious reasons, reaches people that do not otherwise pay attention to politics.
• 28:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that this was the aspect that the right picked up on, that, you know, like you can mention Jeffrey FC's name on something like Joe Rogan or some sort of podcast and you would get people's their ears would prick up.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: They would like, you know, want to hear more about this.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I do actually think that Trump himself was never like that much into emphasizing Epstein.
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: He did it occasionally.
• 29:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think for good reasons he wasn't into it.
• 29:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the people around him, his family members and like all the people like Steve out, it's certainly like picked up on it.
• 29:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now I feel like it's boomeranging on them in a big way.
• 29:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe Democrats can rethink the fact that, hey, this is like a topic that allows you to reach voters that you cannot otherwise talk to.
• 29:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, look, anything involves children is going to reach a lot of people as well, and especially bad things happening to children as this scandal obviously involves horribly.
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, yes, I think the right really, and as much as I hate to admit it, the Q&AN stuff and the really out there, the cracked mega conspiracies, and as crazy as they are on some level, they're promised on an understanding of what gets people going.
• 29:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 29:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 29:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I had thought of the Epstein thing as something to reach these voters who are in these different cultural spaces.
• 30:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that's a great point.
• 30:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: It absolutely gets this kind of penetration that a lot of other issues, including kitchen table ones, maybe don't get.
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's emotional.
• 30:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's easy to understand.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's got clear villains, which is a very critical piece of this.
• 30:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And look, some Democrats are actually doing a pretty pretty good job with this.
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like what Senator Ron Wyden has been doing.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: He, as the ranking Democrat on the finance committee, I should just bring this up.
• 30:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote a piece about this at tnr.com.
• 30:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: People can check out.
• 30:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: But he, his staff was actually at the Treasury Department viewing what are called these suspicious activity reports.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is a little technical, but I'm telling you it's worth it people because it's really interesting.
• 30:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: banks are required to file these suspicious activity reports if they see financial transactions that are dubious and they flagged a lot of Epstein transactions.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So on file with the Treasury Department is apparently like thousands and thousands of questionable financial transactions by Jeffrey Epstein
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: some involving the pedophile ring.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And these are, you know, financial transactions that go out to other people, money coming into Epstein.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, widen has called on DOJ to get investigate these transactions on file with Treasury and for Treasury to release them to Congress mainly.
• 31:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I guess the public, although I'm not sure how that would work.
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a good example of a Democrat kind of taking an issue that people intuitively understand, right?
• 31:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Global elites shoveling money to each other for nefarious purposes and, you know, packaging it as a Trump cover-up.
• 32:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, no, no, absolutely.
• 32:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think that with the FC cases, obviously, the sort of sensationalist aspect, which gets people's attention.
• 32:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's a sort of Q&A on spin on this, which is we can, I think, rightly dismiss as, like, you know, unhinged.
• 32:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that the appeal of the Q&A stuff is that it is a narrative that tries to make sense out of things that like, don't otherwise make sense.
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And which the official narratives aren't willing to deal with.
• 32:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's a lot of
• 32:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: very legitimate questions and I think Ron Wyndon has the exact right approach which is look at the money yeah so I mean in the ever actually case I mean there's one obvious question which has never been satisfactorily answered just write all the great journalism that's been done is how did this guy who was like a college dropout and math teacher you know become like like hugely wealthy and like totally integrated into the American economic elite we don't have to know
• 33:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: How that happened and that's actually maybe worth knowing the other aspect is like why so many very wealthy people were willing to make very bizarre financial arrangements with him of like kind of giving him power of attorney over like
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like hundreds of millions of dollars.
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is a very strange thing.
• 33:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think well, worse, like public inquiry, as well as, you know, like the, I think still unsettled issue of why he was able to get a sweetheart deal from someone who became the head of the Department of Labor under Donald Trump.
• 33:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, like, there's so many issues that I think are legitimate public concern.
• 33:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think white ins approach
• 33:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: which is kind of like a forensic approach of using the visticatory power of the state is a good one because again it's a way in which like Mamdeny you're taking something that's a you know wide public interest but actually showing that there is like a government uh... solutions or government approaches that can like address this and and by the way what you said they're kind of sugar thought for me which is that people intuitively understand the idea follow the money
• 34:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And follow the money is deeply embedded in the culture because of the scandals that have penetrated and so forth.
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And people like forensic files.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you've ever watched forensic files.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, true crime people people like that.
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: They like forensic investigations and they like following the money and they like detective work and
• 34:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there are ways to slot this whole story into those molds that will get that kind of cultural penetration that eludes Democrats a lot of the time.
• 34:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, thinking more broadly, I do actually think if we're only thinking about like, what is this sort of scandal and what are the questions to be answered?
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think Ron Wyden's approach really brings out the fact that the proper approach is not like the Donald Trump, the DOJ will selectively release whatever files or have conversations with the delayed Maxwell.
• 35:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is actually a responsibility of Congress.
• 35:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: that there's like, you know, like, these all these outstanding questions that the public wants to know, Congress has a risk of story power.
• 35:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: If the Democrats take back the Congress and the Senate, and they can run on, like saying, like, we will actually investigate this stuff, they could actually call up like all the bankers, all the people that have had dealing with abstinence, like, you know, like make this like an actual way of showing that this is the power that the state actually has,
• 35:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
• 35:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: To address the legitimate concerns of people.
• 35:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a great idea.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've sort of hinted at that in some of these pieces.
• 35:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: What someone like Ron Wyden is doing there is kind of a road map.
• 35:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, he actually described it as a road map himself.
• 35:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: He said if Pam Bondi wants to investigate the Epstein files in a serious way, just walk over to the treasury department and look at these suspicious activity reports and look at Epstein's transactions.
• 36:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: then he literally like he wrote a letter to Pam Bondy laying out exactly what she should look for almost like bread crumbs, you know, and a hundred percent that's that that I think is an important point that you make there which is that you can
• 36:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Democrats can actually demonstrate what it would mean to vote for them in the context of a story that everybody's paying attention to.
• 36:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: You vote for us.
• 36:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's what we'll do to get to the bottom of this horror and we will use our power to do that, whereas Republicans are using their power to cover it up for Trump.
• 36:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is simple stuff and powerful stuff.
• 36:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, no, no, absolutely.
• 36:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So on that note, I want to thank Greg for this conversation, which I thought was both very productive.
• 36:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think perhaps more hopeful than a lot of political conversations.
• 36:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But at least in terms of, like, you know, I think you've productively about the way out of the various messes that we're all in.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I will link in the show notes, people will be able to find both Greg's article about Ramdani and also about these Jeffrey Epstein investigations.
• 37:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So thanks, Greg.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me on.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was a blast, man.