Lacking a unifying mission, the United States flaunts its material prosperity as our claim to leadership of the free world. Bush the elder admitted to having a problem with the “vision thing.” Other presidents offered hope. The disgraceful 2016 political campaign marks a new low for representative government, inviting a return to the Dark Ages.

The Dark Ages resulted from a devil’s bargain between the Roman Church and secular ceding control of men’s bodies to kings in return for ceding control of men’s souls to the Pope, the dual monarchy of church and state. The resulting corruption produced reform movements persecuted as heresies and denial of emerging knowledge in favor of revealed truths (alternative facts). Monarchs, resenting even feeble restraints on their power, created competing national churches resulting in religious wars.

The Age of Reason offered a way of looking at the world based on exploration and deduction instead of dogma. Social scientists and psychologists found that people were poorly equipped to live in the Age of Reason, prone to denying inconvenient truth, self-indulgent instead of self-disciplined and hungry for absolutes. Disgruntled voters turned to Trump to “Make America great again.”

Trump will work to weaken the separation of church and state. The Trump administration using the smokescreen of job creation will convey the 20 percent of the world’s wealth and political influence corporation have yet to control them. Reducing the social safety net will subject labor to never ending competition instead of comradely cooperation.

The folly of capitalism is evidenced by our leader’s persistent attempts to use material goods to fill our spiritual void. Rather than attempting to restore the Dark Ages, we must consider options as those described by the Dalai Lama in “Beyond Religion.” He urges us to abandon sectarianism and tribalism and embrace the humanistic values that underlie the world’s great religions as our unifying principle.

John E. Gibson

Owatonna