In his latest novel, Ian McEwan imagines a future world after a century’s worth of disasters. The good news in “What We Can Know” is that humanity still exists, which McEwan calls “nuanced optimism.” He and David Remnick discuss the tradition of the big-themed social novel, which has gone out of literary fashion—“rather too many novels,” McEwan theorizes, hide “their poor prose behind a character.” But is the realist novel, Remnick wonders, “up to the job” of describing today’s digital life? It remains “our best instrument of understanding who we are, of representing the flow of thought and feeling, and of representing the fine print of what happens between individuals,” McEwan responds. “We have not yet found a compelling replacement.” And yet he does not care to moralize: “the pursuit has also got to be of pleasure.”

McEwan spoke with David Remnick at a public event organized by the 92nd Street Y in New York.

New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.

Only thirty per cent of the American public identifies with the MAGA movement, according to a recent NBC poll, but that coalition remains intensely loyal to Donald Trump in the face of scandals and authoritarian measures. Defections seem rare and come with the risk of reprisal, even from the President himself. Rich Logis is trying to make them less rare with his advocacy organization, Leaving MAGA. The nonprofit’s website features testimonials from former adherents, and offers advice for how friends and family can reconnect after ruptures over politics. Logis himself had been a true believer: he worked on Trump’s campaign, wrote articles, released a podcast, and called Democrats “the most dangerous group in the history of our Republic, foreign or domestic—more than Islamic supremacists, more than the Nazis.” He didn’t view MAGA as reactionary, but “very progressive and forward facing.” But somewhere along the way, Logis hung up his red hat. “Even today, talking about my past, the feelings are conjured—those feelings of being welcomed and feeling like you’re part of something, and the exhilaration that comes from that,” he tells the New Yorker Radio Hour’s Adam Howard. Logis emphasizes that leaving MAGA is difficult because, as much as it’s a political ideology, it’s also an identity that meets emotional needs. “I think that there’s a lot of trauma within the MAGA base, whether it’s political or economic. . . . I’m not qualified to make any kind of diagnosis. I’m not a therapist or a clinician, but there’s a lot of pain within MAGA. And I think that a better question [instead] of asking ‘What’s wrong with you?’ is ‘What happened to you?’ ”

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Both major parties are experiencing a crisis of leadership in Washington. President Trump’s flip-flopping on the Epstein files acknowledges that, on this issue, at least, he has lost control of MAGA. For the Democrats, the collapse of their consensus on the government shutdown deepens a sense that the current leadership is ineffective. For all the talk of unity, the Party is profoundly divided on what message to convey to voters. “Some people argue that we should just—no matter what Donald Trump does or says—just always come back to the economy and prices,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland, tells David Remnick. “And, of course, we should be very focussed on the economy and prices and rising health-care costs, as we have been. But to suggest that we should look the other way in the face of all these other outrages is, I think, a mistake, because I think the American people are tiring of Donald Trump. I think the polls indicate that.” Van Hollen is trying to pave a path between his party’s left and the establishment. He’s used the word “spineless” to describe colleagues in Congress who refused to endorse Zohran Mamdani in his mayoral campaign, but he has not called for Chuck Schumer to step down from leadership, as others have. Van Hollen wants “to be very much part of the debate as to where the Democratic Party goes.” Would that extend, Remnick wonders, to running for President? “My goal at this moment really is to stiffen the spine of the Democratic Party. But that means not just resistance to Trump. It also means taking on very powerful special interests that I think have had too much sway in both the Republican Party for sure, but also in the Democratic Party.” Remnick replies, “I’ve heard firmer nos in my time.”

New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.