One of the reasons why democratic piety has become so prevalent in contemporary politics is the changing social and political climate in this century. The fear of terrorism in Western societies was exacerbated by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, alongside subsequent attacks such as those in Bali, Madrid and London. This has created a new phase in the conception of terrorism in political theory and, in particular, its implications for democratic theory and practice. Hitherto terrorism had been mainly conceived as a problem for specific societies grappling with social and political contexts that gave rise to violent unrest and upheaval, but the attacks in New York demonstrated the capacity of opponents of democracy and liberal values to bring campaigns of terror to Western liberal democracies. The reaction to this strike marked a shift in the conception of terrorism and the lengths to which countries like the United States were prepared to go in counteracting this strategy. The currency of terrorism as one of the defining principles of the modern era was assured and it became a common discourse for politicians and in the popular political lexicon. As understandable as aspects of the American response may have been to the 2001 attacks, the outcome for many liberal democracies has involved a backtracking from key tenets of democratic theory. This chapter will examine these developments and, in particular, the problematic status of democratic piety as the actions and ideas associated with democracy are increasingly discredited by the reaction to terrorism in the world today.