The re-election of President George W. Bush marks an ominous turning point in American and international politics. Having been returned to power, the most reactionary administration in the history of the United States will escalate its program of international militarism and domestic repression. The volume comprises four lectures offering contemporaneous analysis of the 2000 and 2004 US Presidential elections. Through a detailed historical overview, North establishes that behind the breakdown of democracy in the United States lies the deterioration of the global economic position of American capitalism, and the development of unprecedented levels of wealth concentration and social inequality. The turn to aggressive militarism abroad, and the vast expansion of police state measures arise, he maintains, not from the so-called "terrorist threat," but from the extreme sharpening of social and class tensions within American society itself. The volume also includes an incisive obituary to Ronald Reagan and an assessment of the Kennedy presidency written by North and Bill Van Auken on the 40th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination.