Ireturn to Europe from the US with a clear conclusion: American democrats (lowercase d) have 400 days to start saving US democracy. If next autumn's midterm elections produce a Congress that begins to constrain Donald Trump there will then be a further 700 days to prepare the peaceful transfer of executive power that alone will secure the future of this republic. Operation Save US Democracy, stages 1 and 2.

Hysterical hyperbole? I would love to think so. But during seven weeks in the US this summer, I was shaken every day by the speed and executive brutality of President Trump's assault on what had seemed settled norms of US democracy and by the desperate weakness of resistance to that assault. There's a growing body of international evidence to suggest that once a liberal democracy has been eroded, it's very difficult to restore it. Destruction is so much easier than construction.

That's why all democrats, irrespective of party or ideology, must hope the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives in midterm elections on 3 November 2026. Not because of the Democrats' policies, which are a muddle, or their current leadership, which is a mess, but simply because US democracy needs Congress, the principal check on presidential power envisaged in the US constitution, to start doing its job again. That will not happen so long as the Republicans, dominated and intimidated by Trump, control both houses.

Much has been made of comparisons to other authoritarian power grabs, from Europe in the 1930s to Viktor Orbán's Hungary, but I'm most struck by the distinctive features of the US case. To name just four: excessive executive power; chronic gerrymandering; endemic violence; and the way a would-be authoritarian can exploit the intense capitalist competition that permeates every area of US life.