Levitsky and Ziblatt wrote this book in 2018, about a year into Trump’s presidency. To them, the fate of American democracy was up in the air—and readers can decide whether or not it still is, in their own time. The authors hope that their knowledge about democracy and authoritarianism in the rest of the world can help Americans evaluate what to do in their own political circumstances. Here, they lay out two of their book’s central arguments. First, democratic norms are the key to stopping authoritarianism, which means that the U.S. needs to reinforce these norms in order to stop Donald Trump. Second, while Trump is certainly dangerous, his presidency is only possible because of a longer, equally dangerous process of democratic breakdown. This breakdown comes from political polarization, which is largely a response to racial inclusivity in American politics since the 1960s.