As a culture, America has turned a very sad corner and seems hell-bent on destroying itself in the name of unfettered selfishness. I hope to provide a few examples of this and what needs to be done to bring ourselves as a people back from the brink of irrelevance.
For all of its terror and brutality, I think groups like the Islamic State embrace a few social traits that strengthen their chances for survival and success beyond our own:
I am not any sort of fanboy of ISIS nor do I approve of their methods, so don't turn me in as some traitor in our current hysterical climate! I am also not comparing any religious dogma in particular here, say between Islam and Christianity. Everything I am talking about is sociological in nature and points to the fact that a group that inspires as ISIS seems able to do is going to outlast the possible collapse of Western civilization.
If we "Westerners" don't re-discover and re-engage the traits that build and perpetuate a society, we will continue to become culturally weaker. At some point, we will be unable to withstand groups that simply out-breed and out-"culture" us. Ultimately, I see Americans either being supplanted by, or more likely assimilated (as an underclass) into, cultural groups who better know and embrace "social success traits" that we have chosen to abandon. If that other cultural group proves to be Muslim, their conviction that Westerners are infidels will probably lead them to destroy such. If we are lucky, they will just enslave us.
How are we accomplishing our own decline?
As you have observed in our own society, we are setting aside all the culture-promulgating bullet points above as antiquated foolishness. As an example, let me shine a little light on the current Western "love affair" with LGBT(Q) practitioners.
Judeo-Christian/Islamic tradition has the concept of the "harlot". This is a person who traffics in sexual distractions, often for money. One can always find a market for this because sex and things like it are very physically pleasurable. The LGBT(Q) movement can be viewed most basically as an "open-source" avenue to a cornucopia of such pleasuring "harlots" - you can get your sexual distractions without spending much money on it! If prostitution was a taxi service, the LGBT(Q) movement would be like Uber.
Sadly, at the behest of LBGT(Q) types, every young person now has to struggle with questions about their gender and its role in their lives. They are encouraged to do this by profiteering harlots in media and popular culture by spending vast amounts of time and energy exploring the rat-hole of their personal sexuality. LGBT converts spend themselves on "pride" marches and politicizing their supposed "discrimination" to gain wider acceptance. They often co-op the natural love of parents, siblings, and friends, getting them to support their "cause" as well by marching beside them, all in the service of a libertine sexuality that discourages natural marriage, encourages divorce, produces no children, and "spends" our cultural strength. If you don't support the LGBT(Q) community and their purposes, you will angrily be branded as a bigot by those who say they just want to be loved and accepted. All of this harlotry is fought for in courtrooms and legislatures, ignoring far more important and challenging matters, because some people want "respect" for their open desires for unfettered sexualized pleasuring.
If people gave as much concentration to, say, financial help to family and friends as they do to such navel-staring, its public promotion, and other rat-holes of societal time and energy, there would be far less poverty and we would have more resources of all sorts available to contribute to solutions to far more deserving issues. Unfortunately, the LGBT(Q) "harlots" demand our strength and attention and we have becoming very willing to forgo things like family and society to appease them.
Let me be frank, I think we are totally losing this "war on terror" with our willingness to use our amazing weaponry at the slightest provocation and our willingness to throw away our few remaining values in the process. We are using the wrong tactics and weapons. Our enemies, possessed of little more than their devotion to a God that asks for a higher standard, will easily dominate us at some point unless we come to our senses! Groups like ISIS will not win because Islam is necessarily superior. Such a people will win because they have chosen to embrace the pillars of societal strength like family and childbearing and child-rearing that we are spending our strength to banish from among us.