No sensible reader of the news could look at America and think it is flourishing. Massive economic inequality and the breakdown of family formation have eroded the very foundations of society.

Once-beautiful cities and towns around the nation have succumbed to an ugly blight. Cratering rates of childbirth, rising numbers of ‘deaths of despair,’ widespread addictions to pharmaceuticals and electronic distractions testify to the prevalence of a dull ennui and psychic despair.