A prominent historian has issued a stark warning that Americans have just over a year to protect their democracy from what he describes as impending collapse. Timothy Garton Ash, a British historian and author, outlined his concerns in a new op-ed for The Guardian.
He argued that the 2026 midterm elections will be decisive in determining whether U.S. democracy survives. According to Ash, if Republicans secure control of Congress, there will be no effective check on President Donald Trump’s power, accelerating what he sees as the erosion of democratic norms.
“I return to Europe from the US with a clear conclusion: American democrats (lowercase d) have 400 days to start saving US democracy,” Ash wrote. “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.”
Ash, who spent seven weeks in the United States this summer, said he was disturbed by the pace of what he described as Trump’s dismantling of democratic safeguards. “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,” he added.
In his view, Democrats must focus their messaging on the economy as the midterms approach. Despite Trump’s claims of economic strength, Ash argued that recent job numbers suggest his record may not be as solid as advertised.
“So the big question is whether the negative economic consequences of Trump will be palpable to ordinary voters before the midterms,” Ash wrote. “One astute political observer suggested to me that Trump, flush with revenue from the new tariffs, could do a pre-election cash handout to voters, perhaps presented as compensation for the ‘temporary difficulties’ of the transition to a MAGA economy.”
Ash warned such a move would align with Trump’s populist style. “That would be a classic populist move,” he said. The historian’s article comes amid mounting global concerns about democratic backsliding, with the U.S. often cited as a key test case. For Ash, the stakes of the 2026 midterms could not be higher, framing them as the pivotal moment to either restrain or enable Trump’s consolidation of power.