Contemporary American politics is destroying America's relevance and influence abroad and its democratic values at home. This book shows how these forces evolved and have been transformed, fragmented, and perverted such that America has been broken by old political mindsets and harsh partisanship; how religion, ideological overtones, and excesses prevent rational policy. We also see that the forces threatening American democracy are an "antique" form of government that seems to be in permanent gridlock since it is driven, distorted and corrupted by self-interest. These things have engaged the nation in the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, as well as having intruded across inviolable political boundaries; and an extraordinarily dangerous yet misunderstood threat that can draw on tens of millions of converts — many of whom are prepared to die in the process of imposing a political-theological regime on a region rich in oil with access to nuclear weapons.