Giving up is unforgivable: a manual for keeping a democracy (2024) by Joyce Vance https://a.co/d/0a4O5Teh

MW: Alas, no action list!

Parts of the book were re-hashing information I was long aware of (including Marbury v Madison and the Dredd Scott decision.) The latter half of the book added some new content for me, but again I was disappointed that for “action items” there were just a few “baby steps” at pages 145-149.

Some other books do contain some useful action items; please share any others you know of!

• How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them (2022) by Barbara F. Walter https://amzn.to/3QK36v7 MW: Excellent. As I read this, I see the exact incentives and motivations that could easily bring a civil war between the crashing MAGA movement and the groups they are choosing to target for loss of status. Very scary.
• How to Stand Up to a Dictator: A Nobel Laureate’s Fight Against Authoritarianism (2022) by Maria A Ressa https://amzn.to/4wRPy0W MW: Excellent.
• On tyranny: twenty lessons from the twentieth century (2017) by Timothy Snyder https://a.co/d/0bloIIvU
• Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID (2026) by Nicholas Enrich https://amzn.to/48mODLG
• The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government (2026) by Barbara McQuade https://amzn.to/3TzwBBr MW: See Part 3: action list.
• This Is The Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy (2026) by Ben Wikler https://amzn.to/4pQJLG1 MW: Fun, some great ideas and action items.

Other books that lack “action lists”

• Betrayed: America Didn’t Vote for This (2026) by edited by Ira Shapiro & Anne Kim, Common Sense Coalition https://amzn.to/4yY6DYo MW: Alas, no action list!
• The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World (2026) by Brian Tyler Cohen https://amzn.to/3Rp4AvD  MW: Disappointing.

I’m a former journalist, attorney, and teacher.

One of my main worries is that the US Supreme Court will issue “shadow docket” rulings allowing 47 to interfere with mail-in ballots by denying delivery, based on convoluted, corrupt databases they are compiling from some state data and from federal databases. I also expect, unlike many attorneys, that the US Supreme Court will issue a shadow docket opinion overruling the Missouri Supreme Court (if it decides to use the non-gerrymandered maps here, or if it orders voting on those maps under Measure A).