We live in a perilous political time. Everywhere we look, most especially in the media, we are confronted with conflict between and among identity groups, political groups, and especially these days ambiguous groups defined by words that obscure their purpose or intent. Words have lost much of their obvious or clear meaning. Social justice combines two words each of which has a clear meaning to create a phrase that with each passing year has become increasingly Orwellian. Nobody really knows what the words now mean and what they mean depends on who is saying them in what context and in what circumstances. The seeming breakdown of civil society and the growing dysfunction of our political system are all amplified by a pandemic that has no end in sight. Yet in the midst of this most depressing set of circumstances in the middle of this most depressing year, I have just read a book that spends its first-half presenting the darkest imaginable picture of our country and our political system, and yet which ends with a sense of powerful optimism that we can put ourselves back together again with some relatively simple and achievable solutions that could re-create the political system to which our founders aspired. This article is a cross between a review of the book and a Hymarx Outline. ... Read More