The state will protect us. Until it starts to threaten us. When Donald Trump won the American presidential election in 2016, many Americans and people around the world reassured themselves of the resilience of the American system and the stability of its institutions. A narcissistic psychopath may have risen to the head of a world superpower, but democracy does not rest on personalities; rather, it is based on a solid system of checks and balances, independent offices, and institutions with a long and respected tradition, as was often said among Western journalists and commentators. One of the few to criticize this approach was Masha Gessen — years spent in Russia and writing about Vladimir Putin's government suggested to her that the transformation of democracy into autocracy could be easier and faster than it might seem. Therefore, shortly after Trump's victory, her essay "Autocracy: Rules for Survival" became one of the most shared and cited articles. However, the book Surviving Autocracy is not merely a book elaboration of the original essay or another entry in the long list of Trump's scandals and breaches of democratic norms. Gessen places her experiences with the government and actions of Donald Trump over the past four years into a broader political framework and compares them to similar developments in...
