How to Eat an Elephant (One Voter at a Time)

The playbook for consigning MAGA-style politics to the ash heap of history (where it belongs). Featuring a foreword by Jonathan V. Last.

After Donald Trump won the 2024 election, Sarah Longwell did what she's done nearly every week for the past eight years: She sat down with voters. She conducted hundreds of focus groups, listening to thousands of ordinary Americans—Republicans, Democrats, and the politically homeless—with the goal of understanding politics through the eyes of the people who will decide our country’s future.

American voters, and what they want for their country, are at the heart of How to Eat an Elephant. Longwell, the founder of The Bulwark and one of the sharpest political communicators of her generation, lays out the playbook for building a coalition big enough, bold enough, and tough enough to defeat authoritarian populism for good. Not with a single election. Not by doing another poll or debating the benefits of being more progressive or more moderate, but by building something new: A modern pro-democracy movement that can create its own communications infrastructure—just like the right has done for decades—achieve narrative dominance, elevate more compelling leaders, and talk to voters like adults.

Drawing on her own unlikely political journey from a lesbian Republican operative to the vanguard of the anti-MAGA movement, Longwell delivers a book that is equal parts war manual and pep talk—with her personal and professional story woven throughout. With her trademark bluntness and humor, she explains exactly how we got here and, more importantly, what we must build next—all while directly quoting the most important but overlooked people in the country: the voters themselves.

She answers the question: How do you eat an elephant? One voter at a time.