How Zohran Mamdani Changed Politics Forever | The Deep
The LOOPcast
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4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
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Zohran Mamdami’s meteoric rise from a seemingly unknown state assemblyman to the next mayor of NYC signals a shift into a new era of politics. In this episode of The Deep, Erika breaks down how the age of social media is shaping the world of politics today. Is it dumbing down the electorate? Is it turning politicians into mere influencers whose success is based on their ability to go viral (instead of the quality of their policy ideas)? How should we respond to the "TikTok-ification” of politics?
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro: The rise of Zohran Mamdani
1:31 - The Mamdani playbook
3:59 - A new era of politics
5:15 - How media shapes politics
8:05 - What has changed?
9:40 - Why Zohran’s strategy worked
12:08 - Has social media dumbed the electorate?
13:21 - Once you win, reality hits
14:46 - Conclusion: how to respond to the age of “TikTok politics”
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Sources:
Dhanyamraju, Sandeep. “The Impact of Smartphone Addiction on Cognitive Function and Attention Span.” Lone Star Neurology, published April 9 2025; medically reviewed by Chaitanya Bonda. Accessed November 13 2025. https://lonestarneurology.net/others/the-impact-of-smartphone-addiction-on-cognitive-function-and-attention-span/. Lone Star Neurology
Schleffer, Guy, and Benjamin M. Miller. “The Political Effects of Social Media Platforms on Different Regime Types.” Texas National Security Review, Summer 2021, pp. 77–103. Accessed November 13 2025. https://tnsr.org/2021/07/the-political-effects-of-social-media-platforms-on-different-regime-types/#_ftn42. UT Austin Libraries+2Texas National Security Review+2
Silver, Laura, Janell Fetterolf, Christine Huang, Sarah Austin, Laura Clancy, Sneha Gubbala, and Richard Wike. “Social Media Seen as Mostly Good for Democracy Across Many Nations, But U.S. Is a Major Outlier.” Pew Research Center, December 6 2022. Accessed November 13 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/12/06/social-media-seen-as-mostly-good-for-democracy-across-many-nations-but-u-s-is-a-major-outlier/. Pew Research Center
Dunbar, Marina, and Andrew Witherspoon. “Where the Vote for Mamdani Was Strongest in New York City.” The Guardian, November 5 2025. Accessed November 13 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/05/mamdani-vote-new-york-city. The Guardian
“The Death of the Public Intellectual.” Substack, August 2 2025. Accessed November 13 2025. https://substack.com/home/post/p-158820994.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Zoran Mamdani just did the impossible. |
| 0:03.0 | A failed rapper, immigrant, an unknown 34-year-old. |
| 0:07.0 | Today is the mayor of New York City. |
| 0:10.0 | It all started with one viral video 10 days after Trump won re-election. |
| 0:16.0 | With a few simple questions, |
| 0:18.0 | Momdani captured the frustrations that would animate his meteoric |
| 0:22.7 | rise to power. |
| 0:24.1 | The message, the strategy, and the attention all align perfectly on his social media platform. |
| 0:31.5 | On February 7, 2025, Momdani showed up in an early Democratic primary poll tied for last place. He had less than |
| 0:40.2 | 1% of the vote. Within two weeks of that poll, Mamdani had raked in more small dollar individual |
| 0:46.8 | donations through his videos than any other candidate on the ticket, including the current mayor, |
| 0:52.8 | Eric Adams, and former governor, Andrew Cuomo. |
| 0:56.3 | As the primaries loomed, he even dropped another video, Please Stop Sending Us Money. |
| 1:02.3 | Please stop sending us money. |
| 1:05.0 | All year the campaign slogans flashed, free child care, rent freezes, his own made-up economic terms like halalaflation. |
| 1:13.6 | New York is suffering from a crisis, and it's called halaliflation. |
| 1:17.6 | From that first viral moment, Mamdani honed in on his message, persuaded the public, |
| 1:22.6 | commandeered the attention of the world, and a few months later, New York elected its first |
| 1:29.1 | democratic socialist mayor. |
| 1:32.1 | Some compare him to 2016 Trump, updated for a 2025 online arena. |
| 1:38.2 | The establishment on both sides of the aisle watched in disbelief, Momdani going viral on their feeds, thinking, |
| 1:45.9 | but socialism always fails. He has no experience. He has bad ideas. Why don't the kids see |
... |
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