It won’t surprise anyone living on this side of the Atlantic, but the political noise coming out of the United States sounds increasingly fascist-adjacent.

When Francis Fukuyama wrote The End of History in 1992, he argued that Western liberal democracy was humanity's final ideological destination. He was wrong. Lately, we've watched authoritarian backsliding sweep through Brazil, Hungary, and the Philippines. Now, the ultimate test has arrived. The US voted twice for a leader intent on dismantling every democratic guardrail in sight. It’s thoroughly entertaining if you view it as an episode of Veep, but the reality is dead serious.

Enter Melissa Dalton-Bradford. Writing from Germany, she is clearly deeply concerned about the democratic recession in her American homeland. In the urgent style of Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum, she unpacks eleven tactics that wannabe dictators love to use—like attacking the truth, scapegoating the vulnerable, and corrupting elections. Her historical case studies are sharp, and terrifyingly, one of her primary examples is always the modern United States.

But this isn't just a book of doom and gloom. What struck me most was the author's passionate, grassroots plea for action.

Dalton-Bradford refuses to let us treat politics like a spectator sport. She firmly rejects the idea that we should just sit back and wait for politicians to fix the mess. Instead, she empowers us to grab the reins of democracy ourselves.

While her examples lean heavily on the US, her solutions are universally applicable. I closed this book feeling genuinely optimistic. It is a roadmap for everyday resistance, and I know I’ll keep returning to it—especially for her brilliant, practical advice on how to have productive political conversations with people on the opposite side of the aisle (even the ones I'm tempted to call idiots!).

How to Save Democracy is a clear, urgent response to the growing threat of authoritarianism. Melissa Dalton-Bradford explains how democratic norms are weakened, how fear and disinformation are used to gain power, and what ordinary people can do to push back. I appreciated that the book does not treat the current political moment as an abstract debate. It recognizes that attacks on voting rights, civil liberties, marginalized communities, and the free press have real consequences.

As someone who is very left leaning, I found the book's defense of pluralism, equality, and civic participation especially meaningful. It offers practical ways to resist authoritarian politics without pretending that respectful dialogue alone will solve everything. The message is ultimately hopeful, but not complacent. Democracy survives only when people are willing to defend it. My sincere thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a free advance review copy.