“A society that has lost that confidence can easily become a society dissatisfied with an insecure status quo but too risk averse to do anything about it beyond complaining. As Cowen suggests, this may be the biggest of all the risks we face. And as Poulos suggests, addressing this problem will require a revival of some means of democratic forbearance that may in turn depend on a revival of democratic institutions, broadly conceived.”

(I don’t know that we’re really all that risk-averse: we elected Trump, which is a huge risk.)