Are you optimistic or pessimistic about America’s future? I’m optimistic. I say that because there have been many moments in our history when old ideas and old arrangements stopped working and people chopped them up. Those transition moments were bumpy, and it was easy to lose hope, but then people figured it out. Never underestimate the power of human ingenuity.

The same process is happening today. Americans have lost faith in the big institutions of society. Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left. Most of the rest of us feel adrift, gloomy and politically homeless.

But people figure it out. New ideas emerge. Old ideas are put together in new ways. Today, I offer you just one example — the Niskanen Center, which has become one of the most creative think tanks in America today.

The Niskanen Center began operations in 2015 , started by a group of libertarians who broke off from the Cato Institute. Over the next few years many of the leaders of Niskanen began to lose faith in the libertarian ideology. The founder, Jerry Taylor, wrote a brilliant essay in October explaining the process.