Suggest me a book about how nations slide into fascism/authoritarianism and how they can recover

Fiction or non-fiction. Not too deep on political theory pls, as plain language as possible. Life in the US only 6 weeks before the national election feels like we're teetering on a knife's edge. How are neighbors pitted against each other like this, and how do we find our way back? I'm trying to feel more hopeful about our nation's possibilities.

I grew up in the 70's/early 80's with a huge dose of 'it can't happen here-itis', because you know…'Murica. Yet today half the country has drunk the Trumpism Kool Aid. My own family, that red white and true blue 70's family, is shattered. I just don't get it. How has casual cruelty become so normalized? Is this slide inevitable once the dog whistles start? How do you turn this around? How did 20th c. Germany recover post-Hitler, and how are they safeguarding not traveling that road again?

So far I have Steinbeck's "It Can't Happen Here" and Mayer's "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945" on my TBR list. TIA for your suggestions.