evidence: This polarisation leaves moderates little room for manoeuvre. Trump-like figures have abounded in American history and Levitsky and Ziblatt are under no illusions about the appeal of authoritarians and xenophobes to a significant minority, sometimes up to 30 per cent or so of voters. Thus the ‘real protection’ against Father Coughlin, Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy or George Wallace is not the supposedly democratic instincts of the voters themselves, but the now weakened party establishments. The ascendancy of primary contests – far from an unmixed blessing – has ended the era of secret anointments (and exclusions) in smoke-filled rooms. Even so, Levitsky and Ziblatt argue, the grandees of the Republican Party could have done more to prevent the election of ‘a president with a dubious allegiance to democratic norms’. There was plenty of ‘hemming and hawing’ in the upper reaches of the Republican Party, and several key figures – among them John McCain, John Kasich, Mitt Romney and the Bush clan – declined to endorse Trump. But none of them was bold enough to take the subsequent step of endorsing Hillary Clinton. Instead, by closing ranks, the party elders ‘normalised the election’.