Know Your Enemy - Zohran! (w/ Waleed Shahid) [Teaser]

It's Zohran time! Matt and Sam talk to campaign strategist Waleed Shahid about Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani's decisive victory in NYC's Democratic mayoral primary.

Duration: 3m
Broadcast on: 11 Jul 2025
Audio Format: other

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

We don't do too many New York City-focused episodes on Know Your Enemy, but Zohran Mamdani's decisive win in the Democratic mayoral primary last month certainly warrants this one. The thirty-three year old democratic socialist, state assemblyman, and Muslim of Indian descent born in Uganda, ended up running away with it, defeating the runner-up, former governor and sex pest Andrew Cuomo, by over ten points—and, when all the ballots finally were counted, set a record by receiving the most votes of any candidate for mayor in a Democratic primary in the city's history.

Our format in this episode is a little different. In the first half, your podcast co-hosts lay out the basics of Zohran's victory, from Zohran's biography to the final tallies to our impressions of the candidate and his message. In the second half, we're joined by veteran progressive campaign strategist Waleed Shahid to get more of an insider's take on Zohran's achievement: the campaign's stunningly effective turnout operation, which brought out young voters in droves; how he withstood the disgusting way he was attacked as an anti-semite for his protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza; the substance of his pitch to New Yorkers, and it's contrast with Cuomo's uninspiring, mostly negative campaign; the deranged Islamophobic attacks on Zohran since he became the Democratic nominee, and not only from the right; the role of current NYC comptroller and a progressive, Jewish candidate in the race, Brad Lander, who cross-endorsed Zohran, refused to punch left, and joyfully campaigned with Zohran in the final weeks leading up to the election; and more!

Sources:

Waleed Shahid, "How Broadcast Media Covered Zohran Mamdani's Win," Waleed's Substack, July 3, 2025

Matthew Miles Goodrich, "It's...the Politics of No Translation," Something Different, July 2, 2025

Sam Adler-Bell, "Can DSA Go the Distance?" Dissent, Fall 2022

John Cassidy, "The Case for Zohranomics," The New Yorker, June 30, 2025

David Wallace, "10 Ways of Making Sense of Zohran Mamdani’s Win," New York Times, July 2, 2025.

Nicholas Fandos, Benjamin Oreskes, Emma G. Fitzsimmons, & Jeffery C. Mays, "How Zohran Mamdani Stunned New York and Won the Primary for Mayor," New York Times, July 1, 2025

I had a little bit more context for Zaron because I did a big piece for Descent on New York City DSA in 2022 and it was like kind of a group profile of different people who are involved in different factions and it was interesting in retrospect because what the piece was about was like how does the organization relate to the electeds that it has gotten into Albany and into the city council and into Congress and I was connected with Zaron and for context he is an elected assemblyman in Queens so he's a state legislator and the thing that really struck me about talking to him is he was the person who I talked to among both the electeds and the people in the organization and he was an active member in the organization before he ran he wasn't like somebody who sought DSA's endorsement he had been in DSA was that he had the fullest vision for how basically like a socialist elected could be like a tribune for the movement and he spoke on that topic very eloquently I also just have to say that he was even then three years ago extremely charming extremely well spoken very likable I just recently was texting with the friend of ours who connected me with Zaron looking back at our text messages after I talked to Zaron and I was like who is this guy he's amazing but I didn't remember but he was extremely just really really well spoken and like thoughtful and like clearly a serious you know socialist activist but not annoying about it and like very committed to talking about what that set of values means in a way that's really legible to people who are not socialist and may never be I was just really impressed by him yeah Sam it is striking just how excellent of a communicator he is I did watch some of the debates and he was so good in them also you know the press conferences especially as he's being attacked in such a personal nasty way you know his poise and kind of how articulate he is are really really striking and you know I wanted to get this in too you know we already have hinted it's kind of odd that democrats haven't certain of them have not rallied around him that the party as a whole hasn't because you know he would seem to be you know the exact candidate made him one all he talked about was affordability and cost of living he turns out young people and as I was thinking about this I don't know if you saw the story that came out in the last couple of days about Kamala oh god yeah she actually went on it's called someone takes with Kareem Rama during the 2024 campaign and they're like a liberal outfit right like it's not like she went on Rogan or you know a right wing podcast it wasn't that and they basically said she was so bad on it that they actually decided not to release it they didn't want to release it because they thought it was so bad that they would get blamed for her losing the election if they put it out

and I just thought all the discourse about podcasts and what Harris you know should or shouldn't have done which podcasts left Joe Rogan all that stuff here's this guy who's incredibly articulate and park it going any podcast in the country and hold his own you know the very thing they said they've been begging for wanting you know that that the candidates need it just makes it all the more striking how the democratic establishment is responding to him [Music]

It's Zohran time! Matt and Sam talk to campaign strategist Waleed Shahid about Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani's decisive victory in NYC's Democratic mayoral primary.