Michael J. Kram

Is America worth saving, or not?

A generalist’s 40-minute case that the Founders trained a skill we have lost, and what it would take to get it back.

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Read the Notice first
Front cover of Common Sense 2.0: The Mother of All October Surprises, Teaser Edition, by M. Kram. A ballot marks "The Generalists" over "The Specialists."
Back cover of Common Sense 2.0 with the headline "Why America is at a breaking point", the blurb, a tent-city street before a burning Capitol, the ISBN barcode and the Barker Publishing House logo.
Teaser Edition · Barker Publishing House · 2026

Written before the November 3, 2026 vote. The election is over. The argument isn’t.

Sepia ink drawing of a worker with four arms inside a Da Vinci circle and square, holding wheat, a wrench, a book and a compass, with a farm, a factory, a schoolhouse and a town in the corners and a SPECIALISTS / GENERALISTS signpost at a crossroads below.

Generalists occur naturally, roughly one per million births. The Founders did not beat those odds by stumbling into a majority of generalists: they trained them.

M. Kram, from the NoticeOne per million is the author’s own estimate.

Inside the book

Forty pages. Six parts. One skill.

The Teaser Edition runs in this order. The pitch sits in the middle, after the Agenda’s first draft.

Oil painting of a crumbling Tower of Babel hung with BIG PHARMA, MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX and REGULATORY CAPTURE banners, beside green farmland and a walled town, with villagers walking past a SPECIALISTS / GENERALISTS signpost.

  1. Part 1

    Request for Proposals

    The author opens by recruiting. He asks for help with correspondence, a website, a co-writer for 2028, and research funding.

    57 words

  2. Part 2

    The Agenda, first draft

    His notes, then the Agenda written as a speech for the President to give before the vote. You read it over the President’s shoulder.

    1,824 words

  3. Part 3

    The Notice

    The pitch in 392 words, and the page you can read below. Its dare is four words long: “Please prove me wrong.”

    392 words

  4. Part 4

    Save the 2026 Election

    The long form of the Agenda, eleven numbered items in the same speaking voice. Its one Basic Principle, set by executive order: “Coherence, with a bias for the Golden Rule.”

    3,557 words

  5. Part 5

    Appendix 4, The Generalist

    Three word games you can play tonight, each at two levels. You can try the first one on this page.

    2,026 words

  6. Part 6

    Appendix 5, America’s Roots

    Nine traditions, each counted in generations. It ends where the book’s title comes from: Paine’s Common Sense.

    691 words

Painting of the Capitol hanging upside down from a gray sky over a city street of tents, with LOST COMMON SENSE, RULE OF PORK and RULE OF WINK 'N NOD signs and people warming their hands at a burning barrel.

From the book

Read the Notice before you pay.

Notice

Is America worth saving, or not?

In 1776, America’s Founders solved every problem blocking the design and operation of the world’s most exceptional moral republic. Their “only” resources were a 5,000-volume library, their education and literacy, and a special skill I’ll call generalism.

Somehow they took only the best from ancient, classic, and medieval history and from the Enlightenment, and none of the faddish or the bad, as 250 years of use and study now confirm.

Then the republic they built produced the 200-Year Miracle, multiplying the earth’s population tenfold and adding 7.5 billion people in the process.

But what about the causes? What are they, and how do they work?

This generalist has spent a lifetime applying the skill to an endless succession of intractable problems, and he can dissect it and demonstrate exactly how it works.

Our thesis is that the difference between the two ends of that quarter millennium rests on one thing: the Founders were saturated with generalists; today we have none. Generalists occur naturally, roughly one per million births. The Founders did not beat those odds by stumbling into a majority of generalists: they trained them. This author offers DIY training below in App. 4.

Please prove me wrong.

Excerpt from the Notice. One passage is cut at the ellipsis; the section continues in the book.

Ink and watercolor oak, bare on the left and in red and orange autumn leaf on the right, with SPECIALISTS and GENERALISTS ribbons on its branches, a farm, a factory, a church, a schoolhouse and a hilltop town in the crown, and roots spreading below the ground line.

Appendix 4, Game 1

Try the author’s game before you buy it.

Every noun lives on its own leaf of one big tree. Walk from one leaf to another by changing one thing at a time. Fewer steps wins.

Start: rocking chairGoal: 1910 Mod. 20 Hupmobile

  1. Rocking chair

    The starting leaf: a seat that rocks in one place.

  2. Rolling chair

    Extrapolate: the rockers become wheels.

  3. Rolling vehicle

    Extrapolate: a chair becomes anything that rolls.

  4. Motor car

    Specialize: the vehicle gets a motor.

  5. 1910 Mod. 20 Hupmobile

    Specialize: one make, one model, one year.

Rating: 4 steps.

Three games, two levels each, in Appendix 4.

The Teaser Edition

Own the file. Forty minutes. $3.99.

What’s in the file

  • The case: the Notice, and the Agenda written as a speech for the President.
  • The training: three word games from Appendix 4, two levels each.
  • The roots: nine traditions counted in generations, ending in Paine’s Common Sense.
  • The proposals: the author’s open Request for Proposals, the four jobs he is recruiting for.
$3.99One EPUB file, DRM-free and yours to keep. No account to create.
Paperback on Amazon · $14.99

If the file doesn’t arrive in ten minutes, write to us and a human resends it the same day.

Email author@michaeljkram.com if anything goes wrong.

The front cover of Common Sense 2.0, Teaser Edition.
The back cover of Common Sense 2.0, with the blurb, a tent-city street before a burning Capitol and the ISBN barcode.

Michael J. Kram

Very early, the author discovered a rare and captivating root-cause-isolation and problem-solving gift, and has spent his life testing and refining it over a wide variety of industries and sectors, mainly in Silicon Valley.

This ranged from multiplying Air Force technical instruction productivity by switching from their Developmental Method of building on what the students had been taught to his Shotgun Method of building on what the students knew, to residential and industrial construction, to scaling the treatment for and cure for agoraphobia, to solving accelerator problems at LRLB and SLAC, to solving Agena and Discoverer satellite alignment and testing problems, to designing a pre-Windows windows prioritizing interface for Minnkota Power Coop’s new Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system, etc.

Then he became aware that thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars were being wasted annually on legislating, litigating, etc., how to close the open ends of the first two Amendments: Freedom of religion, speech, etc., and the right to bear arms.

On suddenly seeing that both Amendments could be completely closed with five or six simple words, he immediately recognized that his rare gift was the Founders’ stock in trade, that the gift, therefore, could be taught to the average public, and that the Founders had actually exceeded his wildest dreams. A critical mass, of, say 56, was capable of producing such wonders as America’s Constitution, and its 200-Year Miracle, the ten-times multiplication of earth’s population, adding 7.5 billion people.

It has taken years to decipher America’s trajectory and its current condition. He believes that a strong generalist minority, and a proper education can manage the limits of Plato, Nietzsche, and John Adams.

We will know, in a week, or so, whether America agrees.

“It is a gift, yet it can also be learned.”

M. Kram, Save the 2026 Election, section 1

Please prove me wrong.

That is the dare in the Notice. Send your best argument, a correction, or one of the proposals the book asks for.

From the blog

Notes on the generalist idea

All posts

Questions

Before you buy

Is this the whole book?

No. This is the Teaser Edition, about 40 pages and a 40-minute read. The copyright page calls it “a promotional excerpt and summary of an upcoming full-length work.” You are buying the teaser, priced like one.

What do I get?

One DRM-free EPUB file. It lands in your inbox as an attachment and you can download it from the thank-you page the moment you pay. No account, no app lock. It’s yours to keep.

How do I open it on my phone or Kindle?

On iPhone, tap the file in Mail or after the download and choose Books. On Android, open it with Google Play Books. For Kindle, send it with Amazon’s Send to Kindle page or by email, or buy the Kindle edition on Amazon.

Is it political?

Yes, and it says so. The author argues for a way of thinking he calls generalism and proposes an agenda for whoever leads, written as a speech for the President. He puts a dare in the middle of his pitch: “Please prove me wrong.”

The file didn’t arrive. What now?

Check your spam or promotions folder for a message from author@michaeljkram.com. Still nothing? Write to author@michaeljkram.com with the email you used at checkout, and a person resends the file the same day.

Can I get the paperback?

Yes. The paperback is on Amazon for $14.99, 55 pages. The EPUB here costs $3.99 and reaches your inbox within a minute. The paperback ships on Amazon’s schedule.

Who publishes it?

Barker Publishing House published Common Sense 2.0 in 2026. The author writes as M. Kram from Yelm, Washington. The EPUB’s ISBN is 979-8-89558-370-8; the paperback’s is 979-8-89558-369-2.

Painting of a crowd of workers in a green field hauling on ropes to lift the tilted Capitol building upright, with factory smokestacks on the left and a city skyline at sunrise on the right.

“America, it is up to us.”

M. Kram, from the close of Save the 2026 Election
Paperback on Amazon · $14.99