Bulwark Takes - Tim Reacts: Two Great Populist Ads Dems Should Copy

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Tim Miller is back with another ad review, this time, looking at two very different Democrats with surprisingly effective populist messages: Zohran Mamdani’s spoof ad mocking a New York Times piece about billionaires “freaking out” over his mayoral campaign, and Mallory McMorrow’s Senate ad tying the NFL RedZone fiasco to the broader fight against corporate greed and rising prices. Both ads tackle the same challenge for Democrats: showing voters they’re not the party of plutocrats, but of working people. 

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everybody, Tim Miller from the Bulwark here. I am back with another ad review, another positive ad review, a double, actually. You guys really liked the review of Page Cognetti, the mayor of Scranton's launch video. She's running for Congress there in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Folks miss that. We'll put a link in the notes here, and you guys can go check it out. But folks loved it. So we're back with other ad reviews. Today I'm lumping two together because I think it is interesting how two. Democrats who come from very different wings of the party are both going at this question of how do they how do Democrats position themselves against the plutocrats against the billionaires, against corporate America, against the elites in a way that, you know, demonstrates to

working people they care about the same concerns they have and that they are not going to be in the pocket of these entrenched interests, right? I've said this over and over again. I think, you know, I'm not really a class war type guy that's not my go-to instinct as a former Republican. But objectively, just as a campaign strategist, you have to look at this and say, the Democrats have a challenge. They've been too easily painted as the establishment as, you know, the defenders of the status quo, as representatives of the powerful, as corporate elites or whatever. They've been painted that way, in part by kind of the far left that attacks their own party,

but also by Donald Trump and by the MAGA movement that has been. position themselves as the outsiders, right? And in this political moment, voters don't like the status quo. They want an outsider. And so the Democrats have to figure out how to regain that mantle from Trump, particularly on economic issues. And there are two both kind of comedic attempts at this from two different candidates I want to talk about. First is from Zoran Mamdani, obviously running for mayor in New York City. And then we have Mallory McMorrow running for Senate in Michigan. I want to do Zoran's first because I think I like it a little bit better. It's so funny.

The Zornon is so funny. And I just want to, I'm sure viewers of this know this, just put putting cards on the table. Like, I love Mallory. I've had her on the pod several times. You know, we've got to know each other a little bit. She's much more my style, I think, ideologically. I'm sure me and Mallory disagree on a handful of things, but just, you know, kind of, we tend to be more aligned than I would be with Zoron. you like put a checklist of of policies down so i'm not endorsing mallory in that primary there

are a bunch of other michigan senate candidates and we'll be talking about that race more and more um but just you know it's important to be honest with you guys and and so you can bias check me so i do i do a soft spot for mallory and the ad is good but zoron who i have less of a soft spot for um who is very nice uh charming in the green room i i think obviously i think he's got a lot of talent we have which we uh went over in that podcast many substantive disagreements on a a handful of issues. But I think the way he went about this is really clever. And so I want to highlight that first.

And then we'll get to Mallory's ad, but both of them are very good. So let's start with Zoran. Again, I've used the word ad as short-hand these days. In the old days, when you reference an ad, you really meant like a 30-second ad that was on TV, you know, in between commercial breaks of the nightly news. That's not what these things are. The Zoran ads a minute and a half. the Outvalu. Moral ones have been at 20 seconds.

Neither of these are airing on TV. They're digital. They're online, but we're just still using ad as kind of shorthand. The Zoran ad is a spoof on a recent New York Times article headlined, how are the very rich feeling about New York's next mayor? What they do is offer a just a simple dramatic reading of some of the choice excerpts from that story. And let's play a little bit of it now. August in the Hamptons.

Ocean breezes. Oversubscribed Tracy Anderson classes. Parking worlds. Hilarious at the start. We're doing the, you know, Lifestyles of Rich and Famous voice, which I'm really getting a kick out of. Speaking of, just brief aside,

a resurface, Lifestyles of Rich and Famous of Jeffrey Epstein was recently. I just saw on social media from like 2007. It is absolutely insane. And as a little gift to you, I'll put that link to that in the show notes as well. Anyway, back to the ad. It's kind of the lifestyles, the rich and famous tone. But I love that they have here, you know, at the top, the New York Times writer who's

writing the story is trying to set a place and his audiences, people who are familiar with the Hamptons or vend to the Hamptons. But just immediately for any regular person, you start, you listen to it in the spoof voice. You know, like, who are these fucking people? Like, what is it? I don't even know what a Tracy Anderson class is. And, you know, I'm kind of fancy. So, anyway, I think they do a nice job, like, immediately of being like,

we're talking about these other people that have a very different life than you. And this year, the New York City mayoral election looming in the fall, a freak out that the most sumptuous of summer staples has ensued. A freak out. I love the word sumptuous. The more obnoxious of New York Times, is, the better the spoof is. I'm just being tickled by the sumptuous summer staples.

But the freak out is another key word, right? So again, we're positioning Zoron. It's a little easier for Zoran for some of these other candidates, but we're positioning him as like not only anti-establishment, not only anti-status quo, but that the people in power are panicked about him, that they're freaking out. That is, again, that is something that Trump used to affect.

Trump also would, you know, obviously not. use the same kind of tone, but speak in this way that the powerful are scared of him. People like that notion. And so I think this ad, like that, you're just focusing on that word freak out is very powerful. Even overpriced lobster salad can't seem to make people out here feel better. A veteran political fundraiser said, everyone is talking about it all the time. What they are talking about for the most part is whether anyone, specifically former governor, Andrew M. Cuom, or Mayor Eric Adams can beat the Democratic socialist, Zoran Mamdani.

Again, funny, A plus to this guy who's the actor, mispronouncing Cuomo's name is nice. And I like how, like, Zoran's name isn't even mentioned until 50 seconds of this. So, like, they spend almost a full minute establishing that we were talking about these absurd freaks who go to the Hamptons who live a lifestyle that you couldn't even imagine because you're working hard. And we're creating, we're othering them, and we're establishing how other they are. for almost a whole minute before getting to Zoran. And then here's the first clip they show of Zoran himself. In June, he dared to say on Meet the Press. I don't think that we should have billionaires.

The Hamptons is basically in group therapy about the mayoral race. I don't, I don't agree with Zoran that I don't think we should have billionaires. I think that we could probably tax billionaires more. But again, it is just a very simple, easy-to-understand statement that Zoran is offering. then they are now showing the response to that from the billionaire class and nobody's any sympathies of, which is basically they're in a group therapy session in the Hamptons. And now this guy really deserves his Emmy for the final bond Mots here. In other words, the plutocrats are panicking. Another recent benefit from Mr. Cuomo took place at the Southampton estate of the conservative

media executive Jimmy Finkelstein and his wife Pamela Gross, a former advisor to First Lady Melania Trump. There we go again. The plutocrats are panicking. So they're having a freak out and they're panicking. I mean, this is exactly how as a Democrat you want to position yourself against a foe that people dislike. And then he goes on, give a couple of specific examples of the people that are panicking or they're freaking out. A couple of names of people, I don't know. But you learn that they are, you know, MAGA media executives and that they're advisors to Melania Trump. But it's not just them.

It's not just the right people that they go after. Let's listen to the final bit. Mamdani has a great smile and is wonderfully articulate. His social media is entertaining and his promises sound fine until you look at the fine print and they're not realistic. The final bit is a democratic plutocrat. That's unhappy Ozoran, but that even has to acknowledge that his social media is entertaining and that he's charming.

A very nice end. A toast from our actor there. and I think that the campaign way more effectively than he could. You can imagine a more angry version of this. I can count the Bernie, like the elements of Bernie. Like the millionaires and billionaires, right? Like, we're going to get them. Like, we're going to punish them.

It's like not that. It's mocking them. It's mocking them. And it's saying that these guys are freaked out. I don't have any reason to be because Zoran is charming and Zoran is going to work with them. But these guys are panicking and freaked out. So if you want to support someone that has them worried,

that some politician is going to come after at some level their wealth in service of the public good or in service of working people. Well, then you should be for Zoran. Not exactly my politics for a cup of tea ideologically, but a just brilliantly executed ad as a practitioner of the craft just snaps to the Zoran campaign team to the fellow doing it. I've watched it like five times down. I chuckle every time. It's making fun of them. Making fun of the rich people is not as easy. easy that's that's politics that's good that's not white papers you know a white paper about a wealth tax can only get you so far making fun of the plutocrats and saying that they're freaking out

and they're panicked because of that you're coming in that's that's easy that connects all right over to mallory mcmorra similarly she's positioning herself as somebody who cares about working quite's concerns tone is very different and what we've seen from the zoron ad um but let's watch it together football is back and seven hours of commercial free football is not. This is just the latest example of corporate greed, ruining the things we love. All right, Bill.

So there you go. You've got Mallory, though, the first 10 seconds. This is about a news story in case you've missed it because you're not a football fan. There's a thing called Red Zone, NFL Red Zone, where you can watch it. There's no commercials,

and it plays all the football games, and there's this kind of crazy guy who doesn't pee, who just sits there all day long, and he takes you to the most interesting parts of all the games that are happening. And it's very chaotic. It's a fun watch for somebody who just is a big football person, but maybe your team isn't on.

They're playing at a different time. It's a good way to see what's happening in all the games. You're a fantasy person. Red Zone, I highly recommend. Scott Hanson, just a real, an A-plus talent. Got to hand a tone. So anyway, Mallory is immediately demonstrating for people who are familiar with Red Zone and who do care about sports that, like, she knows this.

She is in a lion shirt. she cares about it it's like authentic it's legit right it's not it doesn't seem like what was the thing when i don't even know if tim wells actually tweeted as probably poor fucking staffer tweeted this but it was about how he played madden with aOC and how aOC really knows how to do a pick six and it was just like the language that he used was language of somebody who doesn't understand football which is weird since he was a football coach so again it was probably a staffer but staffers you know people care about this mallory seems like somebody who actually likes watching football and who cares is what this news is annoyed, and now she ties it to the broader message of corporate greed.

Let's keep watching the end. Because it's not just commercials on TV. It's also your grocery store run. Or chicken wings are going to cost you $19. Or a bag of chips. Five bucks. Even beer is getting more expensive. It's a one-two punch.

Tariffs that are making everything more expensive and corporations that are squeezing every last dime out of us. All right, boom. She's going through grocery prices. Something that obviously people care about, something that was very important in the Trump race. She ties, you know, the corporate greed of now you have to watch ads during your football game to the fact that, all right, while you're watching the ads, by the way, the Doritos you're eating more expensive. Everything's more expensive. Ties it directly to Trump's policies, talking about the tariffs. That's good.

The other thing, like, it's kind of subtle is they list specific products and companies in the ad. Let's fast forward, actually. Let's go to that. Chicken. Chips. Tickets, beer. Everything's getting more expensive. All the while, Donald Trump is telling us that prices are down at tremendous numbers.

While he's selling us out to the same corporations who are jacking up prices on the things that we love. And if you look at the receipt there, you can see specific companies. I like this. One of the things that kind of annoys me sometimes about populist left folks is it's like, you've got to name the enemy. And then they don't name anybody. They're just like, it's the oligarchs. It's the plutocrats. They're just like, well, no.

you know what is remediable here like you know like there's some some value obviously and shaking your fist at rich people but what is remediable what is what is like who is the actual person that's screwing you over it takes a little bit of gumption to actually do that right because then you know maybe the CEO will come for you so there's noteworthy that in the ad they showed like specific products and and what their costs are all right let's watch like the very end of the ad where she talks about um how this all ties to her campaign and look on this campaign we are talking about creating a new American dream. A lot of times, that's the big stuff,

making sure you can afford to buy a house, you can afford to start a family, you can afford to save for retirement. Sometimes, it's just making sure that you can afford to take a break on Sundays without breaking the bank. Again, hey, she's got res. She looks good, charming, like Zoran.

But also, it's like, I'm telling this thing that everybody can get and care about. Not everybody, but the broad swath of football fans can get and care about, like, annoyance about these ads, annoyance about the interference of politics, annoyance that I can't have seven free hours one day a week after church to just watch football and not worry about BS, not get nickel and die, not get screwed over, right? She ties that directly to, you know, other more, more traditional issues, other more substantive issues. And, you know, similar to when I was saying that Zoron, it's like, you could do a white

paper version of this, right? You could do an ad version of this and we've seen ad version of this of people walking through grocery stores. It's very common ad, right? But when you tie it to something else to like grabs people's attention, it goes from being kind of peanuts voice, wow, I'm going to help get grocery prices down. Like, okay, everyone says that, right? What does this say about you? Like, what is this about something? What is something that you care about that this candidate, Mallory McMorough, also cares about and wants to address and solve, right? In this case, sometimes it's rather minor issues, maybe, in the grand scheme of things, but important to people, like ruining Red Zone because of corporate greed, and other times

are really big issues, right? Like losing access to health care, et cetera. But it's important to do both. And that page Cognady ad I mentioned this. The thing I liked about that ad was she tucked in, like, in the list of all the kind of policy platforms that she's pushing forth. And she tucked in how when she was mayor, she cared about, I forget the exact phrase, there's something of making parks better.

I was like, you know, I was like upgrading the playgrounds for making the playgrounds better for kids or something. It was a perfunctory line, but it was like, this is a substitute thing that people care about. They want to be able to take their kids as a playground and have it be nice. That's not going to show up in polls is the top issue. There's NFL Red Zone. But it's something that like people can connect with.

And that is where the Democrats have had. such a gap, I think, basically since Obama, with the exception of maybe Bernie AOC and a couple of exceptions. But mostly since Obama, like they've had this gap. And these are some good models to do it. So there you go. Me being positive. Three good ads. You can go see the page like many ad in the other video. Zoran and Valerie McMorro in this video. Good job on you guys. Other people learn from this. Copy it. Other campaigns, learn from this. Copy it. Be good. Do it your own way. you know, put your own little spin on it. If there are more good ads, if there are really bad ads,

I'll keep doing this as long as you guys want me to. We'll see you all soon.