Don’t miss this outstanding essay on populism and the future of liberal democracy by William Galston.

This is only one of many essays I have seen in the last year by champions of liberal democracy engaged in rethinking the tendency toward materialistic and oppressive “culturally neutral” technocracy. I wonder if, in the struggle between people who are tempted toward soulless technocracy and those who are tempted toward exclusionary tribalism, one advantage the technocrats have is the fact that because they have power, and have had it for a long time, they are responsible for results – so when disaster strikes, they rethink.

Those tempted in the tribalist direction never seem to deviate from their stale formulas because they think they know the answers already. Technocracy, in its extreme form, leaves liberalism behind; but it inherits from its liberal roots an openness to the possibility of rethinking and new solutions.

That’s something we can hope for, anyway.