The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy

Big government
Lewis spends a lot of time glorifying government and how it's the key to innovation etc. Yet, he completely fails to capture the irony of 5th risk being a result of government mismanagement. The nuclear waste that was put in the ground was because of poor government choices. However, this doesn't count for anything as he continues to harp on the normal thinly discussed “shortcomings” of the free market. He mentions the waste is a result from the bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki, but he fails to mention that the a Japanese had already surrendered when the bombs were dropped [1]

Trump
He gripes a lot about Trump not being prepared in sending people to the appropriate places. Sure, that's all good and fair, but what would also be fair is to mention that Trump didn't want this job at all [2]. Further more, Trump never expected it, and we can blame the DNC from him getting elected [3] (yes, they had a very big hand in it) as part of their pied piper strategy.

Food stamps
5% of 70 billion is still 3.5 billion. The author really tries to sweep that under the rug. That's no small amount of tax payer money! My own experience was knowing some parents from my children's school, who went bankrupt, foreclosed on their house, bought another house the next year and bought more expensive steaks with food stamps then me who had a job felt comfortable on. It would be akin to going to expensive restaurants how they spent it.

References:
1. Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology, Howard Zinn, 1991.
2. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Michael Wolff, 2018
3. wikileaks, Podesta emails; specifically the “Pied Piper Strategy”