Comparing nations can be misleading. While Western democracies have much in common, the weights of history, culture and tradition are often underestimated. American political life, marked by federalism and the ubiquity of religion, is fundamentally different from that of France, which is centralized and secular.

Nonetheless, examining the authoritarian nationalism toward which the United States has shifted can help make sense of France's own democratic crisis. In his new book, Le Miroir américain. Enquête sur la radicalisation des droites et l'avenir de la gauche ("The American Mirror: An Investigation into the Radicalization of the Right and the Future of the Left"), French-American journalist Cole Stangler argues that certain trends observed in both countries are comparable and could ultimately result in disasters on a similar scale.

Chief among them is deindustrialization. Page after page, Stangler paints a portrait of small towns, such as Weirton, West Virginia, where a once-thriving steel industry has been devastated by international competition, leaving residents steeped in resentment and anger. "This town is finished, we're just totally screwed," one local resident told him. On Donald Trump, she added: "Honestly, I don't give a damn, I'm going to vote for the criminal."

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