America died, and nobody cared. The collapse of the United States provided one more example of misfits, miscreants and malcontents becoming the shapers of world-changing events. The righteous and upright didn't save the day; salvation came from a drug-dealing ex-stockbroker on the lam after jumping parole from his statutory rape prison term and his collaboration with a woman who stole her husband's cash, abandoned her children and became a prostitute. They're the ones we can thank for the peaceful, stable, post-democratic world we enjoy today.