George Will Is Worried About 'The Big Flinch'—And You Should Be Too!

Summary: The Pulitzer-winning columnist George Will has been in Washington, D.C. since the 1970s and he's basically seen it all. But at a special Reason Podcast recorded at FreedomFest, the annual gathering of libertarians held every July in Las Vegas, he admits to be being frightened of what he's calling "the Big Flinch" or "a recoil against the churning of an open society, against the spontaneous order that is the alternative to statism, against the frictions of economic growth that becomes more necessary as the entitlement state becomes more rickety. Meanwhile, the fatal conceit—the abandonment of [Friedrich] Hayek's epistemic humility—is everywhere, particularly in the Republican Party's embrace of protectionism." On the latest Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie talks with baseball fanatic Will about the causes and consequences of the Big Flinch, what it's like to be completely let down by the GOP's leadership, the unquestionably positive dimensions of Donald Trump's presidency (think federal judiciary), and the really odd am-I-having-a-stroke-or-not experience not just of the Chicago Cubs finally winning a World Series but the Houston Astros snagging a world championship too...but for the American League. Audio production by Ian Keyser.