> Western democracies are very good at monitoring and subduing radicals. In a way, that's true - democracy is based on some degree of reasonably-widespread con

> Western democracies are very good at monitoring and subduing radicals. In a way, that's true - democracy is based on some degree of reasonably-widespread consensus, not on what a single power-hungry autocrat might want at any given moment. That would seem to have an inherently stabilizing and moderating effect, and the historical record seems to indicate the same. OTOH, this also implies that deliberative institutions are very important - if a society becomes fractured and distrustful for whatever reason (one can summarize this as "social decay", "decadence" or "dissipation of long-term social capital"), deliberation becomes a lot harder and radicalization has a chance to prevail once again. The proper answer is not authoritarianism of course, but a renewed focus on stable, long-term, social-capital-generating institutions.