Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor of Jacobin magazine, President of The Nation journal and a columnist for Guardian US. He was previously Vice Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and in 2019 authored The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality.

Bhaskar is touring the country, and spoke to fill-in Spin Cycle host Nick Feik ahead of his speaking engagement in Melbourne on June 1st. In this interview, Nick and Bhaskar chat about popular leftist politics and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who Bhaskar was an early supporter of during his mayoral campaign.

On how a New York mayor become the most high-profile left politician in the world, Bhaskar tells Nick: "Part of it is that it's an unlikely story: you have someone who's a Muslim immigrant, who's a unapologetic democratic socialist, who's described himself as a Marxist... who, in an era when people are seeing the United States as undergoing a rightward march under Donald Trump, managed to really win a longshot bid. So it really was an unlikely story, and people like an underdog."

And on whether Zohran's campaign platforms are translatable to other places, he says: "Across the anglophone world, all these countries from the US to Canada to Ireland to Britain and Australia are dealing with the housing crunch. They're all dealing with, particularly among young people, the sense that the best days are behind us and that it will be very, very hard for us to figure out how to navigate a job market and actually save enough to build a future and start families and so on. So I think the message is pretty universal. I also think Zohran has done something really well, which is pick a talented team around him and lean into the fact that we can produce cheap but great-looking videos and disseminate it on social media, and the fact that we might not have the money of our opponents but we can outwork them by doing more events than them and knocking on doors and creating and activating this volunteer army."

Nick and Bhaskar also explore the structure of the Democratic Socialists, Bhaskar's thoughts on and predictions for the upcoming US midterm elections

Bhaskar Sunkara is touring Australia now, and is appearing at Victorian Trades Hall on Monday June 1st.