The United States is a liberal democracy, a constitutional republic, an oligarchy, a military kleptocracy; it is centralized, federated, and a union of equal states; it is an authoritarian scientific bureaucratic apparatus, a traditional common-law community; its judges are elites skimmed from the top of Harvard, men elected by peers, and unqualified friends of the Mayor; it is unicameral and bicameral depending on your location. It is all of these things balanced against one another precariously and stably, at minima, maxima, and saddle points in thousands of millions of dimensions.