Wisdom is good judgment about important matters. The past 2,500 years of political, religious, intellectual, and scientific history have been shaped by a commitment to improve political wisdom and, thereby, achieve widespread human flourishing. This chapter focuses on recent research and political trends. In several areas there are unexpected increases in enlightened political behavior (e.g., the global environmental movement, the end of the Cold War). Likely, earlier lessons about the benefits of liberal democracies and scientific discovery have played a role. Yet observed variations (e.g., Donald Trump’s election, the 2008 global economic breakdown, growing inequality of wealth) also include dangerous, unexpected, and unsolved dysfunctions. Examples of possible causes include behavioral science discoveries that Enlightenment philosophers who shaped the current design of democratic and market systems were wrong about the psychology of typical voters and consumers; peculiar limitations of behavioral variables and inherited data systems that make macroeconomic science dangerously unreliable and increase political instability; and “The unbridled pursuit of wealth, power, fame, sensual passion, arrogance, and pride” that attracts a disproportionate number of such highly motivated individuals to political power. In turn, they have been known to manipulate democratic processes, outsmart earlier safeguards, and divert government priorities.