Leaders vexed by our nation’s season of discontent should recommit to ideas that seemed radical 244 years ago: the enduring principles on which our country was founded offer a road map back to civil society and progress.

Unfortunately, too few Americans know and understand these founding principles; even fewer recognize the context in which those principles were developed and applied by every generation since.

Indeed a 2018 survey revealed that:

 Only one in three Americans would pass the multiple-choice U.S. Citizenship Test.

 Only 24% knew why the colonists fought the British.

This lack of knowledge about history and civics may help explain both the confusion and misguided ideas we are seeing in recent public discourse.