Exactly. In the US, the word "Islamism" comes with a payload that is a gift-wrapped propaganda message: - Islamism will trend toward and harbor fundamentalist

Exactly. In the US, the word "Islamism" comes with a payload that is a gift-wrapped propaganda message: - Islamism will trend toward and harbor fundamentalist "strains". - Islamism cannot be pluralistic or largely secular due to structural reasons or ideological invariants. - An Islamist political system is permanently at odds with the sort of Enlightenment values that guide the West. I've read a lot of very serious arguments that claim that Western pluralism and democracy were largely germinated by doctrinal aspects of Christianity. Quotes like the "Render unto Caesar" passage are hailed as the cornerstone of the separation of church and state, and Islam, lacking the equivalent, is deemed to devalue such separation... Even things like the Schism of 1054 are hailed as helping to usher in the values of representative democracy.