Buildings don’t collapse without warning. Something was carrying more than it was built to carry. For years. And nobody checked. Engineer and architect J. Quali Clay turns a structural eye on the American system and finds a country full of connections that were never actually fastened. Not a book about one man’s character — a book about mechanisms. A mob at the Capitol carrying a conclusion it was handed, the way a king’s words sent four knights to Canterbury in 1170. A promise about gold broken in 1971, with the bill still arriving. A press that learned anger pays better than information. Trump didn’t invent the machinery. He found it unguarded, ran it harder than anyone ever had, and showed us every lock that was never locked. You can’t fix a lock you don’t know is broken. We know now.