Profiles in Cowardice

"A devastating indictment of how those with the most power have enabled Trump and imperilled democracy." Robert Peston

For years now, people around the world have watched Donald Trump push the boundaries of presidential power and asked the same question: how has he been allowed to get away with it?

In Profiles in Cowardice, Jacob Weisberg argues that the answer lies not only with Trump himself, but with the politicians, billionaires, executives and institutions that repeatedly chose accommodation over resistance.

From Wall Street and Silicon Valley to the Senate and the legal establishment, Weisberg examines eight influential figures who privately understood the risks Trump posed yet publicly enabled his rise. Their stories reveal how authoritarianism takes hold not by tearing institutions down, but by gradually bullying them into submission.

Sharp, timely and deeply relevant far beyond America, Profiles in Cowardice is a gripping portrait of power and moral compromise in the Trump era. This is not a story about monsters or masterminds, but about ordinary human instincts - fear, ambition, self-preservation - and the quiet compromises through which democracies can slowly begin to unravel.