The Political Scene’s Washington Roundtable—the staff writers Jane Mayer, Susan Glasser, and Evan Osnos—discuss how, in the wake of the reinstatement of Jimmy Kimmel’s show, public resistance has a chance to turn the tide against autocratic impulses in today’s politics. They are joined by Hardy Merriman, an expert on the history and practice of civil resistance, to discuss what kinds of coördinated actions—protests, boycotts, “buycotts,” strikes, and other nonviolent approaches—are most effective in a fight against democratic backsliding. “Acts of non-coöperation are very powerful,” Merriman, the former president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, says. “Non-coöperation is very much about numbers. You don’t necessarily need people doing things that are high-risk. You just need large numbers of people doing them.”This segment originally aired on The Political Scene on September 26, 2025.
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Ezra Klein’s Big-Tent Vision of the Democratic Party
The author and podcaster Ezra Klein may be only forty-one years old, but he’s been part of the political-culture conversation for a long time. He was a blogger, then a Washington Post columnist and editor, a co-founder of Vox, and is now a writer and podcast host for the New York Times. He’s also the co-author of the recent best-selling book “Abundance”. Most recently, Klein has drawn the ire of progressives for a column he wrote about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, in which he praised the late conservative activist for practicing politics “the right way.” He’s also been making a case for how the Democrats can reëmerge from the political wilderness. But some of his other ideas have also invited their share of detractors. Klein tells David Remnick, “I try to take seriously questions that I don’t love. I don’t try to insist the world works the way I want it to work. I try to be honest with myself about the way it’s working.” In response to criticism that his recent work has indicated a rightward shift in his thinking, Klein says, “One thing I’ve been saying about the big tent of the Democratic Party is the theory of having a big tent doesn’t just mean moving to the right; it also means accepting in the left.”
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The Cartoonist Liana Finck Picks Three Favorite Children’s Books
Liana Finck is a cartoonist and an illustrator who has contributed to The New Yorker since 2015. She is the author of several books, including the graphic memoir “Passing for Human.” Like many of her forebears at the magazine, Finck has also published works for children, and her recent book, “Mixed Feelings,” explores the ways that emotions are often confusing—a truth for readers of any age. “Kids’ books were my first experience of art. They’re really why I do what I do,” she tells David Remnick. Finck discusses her time interning for Maira Kalman, and she shares three “deep cuts” from writers associated with The New Yorker: Kalman’s own “What Pete Ate from A to Z”; William Steig’s “C D B!”; and “Tell Me a Mitzi,” by Lore Segal, with illustrations by Harriet Pincus.
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Is The 2026 Election Already in Danger?
“The Constitution gives the states the power to set the time, place, and manner of elections,” the election lawyer Marc Elias points out. “It gives the President no [such] power.” Yet, almost one year before the midterms, Donald Trump has called for a nationwide prohibition on mail-in voting, an option favored by Democrats, as well as restrictions on voting machines. The Justice Department has demanded sensitive voter information from at least thirty-four states so far, with little explanation as to how the information will be used. Will we have free and fair congressional elections in 2026? “I am very worried that we could have elections that do not reflect the desires and the voting preferences of everyone who wishes they could vote and have their vote tabulated accurately,” Elias tells David Remnick. “That may sound very lawyerly and very technical, but I think it would be a historic rollback.” Elias’s firm fought and ultimately won almost every case that Trump and Republican allies brought against the 2020 election, and Elias continues to fight the latest round of incursions in court. And while he rues what he calls “re-gerrymandering” in Texas—designed to squeeze Texas’s Democratic representatives out of Congress—Elias thinks states run by Democrats have no choice but to copy the tactic. “Before Gavin Newsom announced what he was doing, I came out publicly and said Democrats should gerrymander nine seats out of California, which would mean there’d be no Republicans left in the delegation. . . . At the end of the day, if there’s no disincentive structure for Republicans to jump off this path, [then] it just continues.”
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Kevin Young on His Book “Night Watch,” Inspired by Death and Dante
Kevin Young is the poetry editor for The New Yorker, and the author of many books of his own poetry. His newest work, “Night Watch,” focusses on death, while also drawing upon his wide view of history, from the end of slavery in the U.S. to Dante’s seven-hundred-year-old poem “The Divine Comedy.” Young tells David Remnick that Dante actually played an outsized role in bringing “Night Watch” to life: “This is a book that, I think, without him, I would have kept in a drawer because the subjects were kind of dark that I was trying to contend with, and [Dante] gave a framework for me,” Young explains. “How do you write about [hell] and frame it as a journey rather than a morass?”
USA