The coming end of Christian America
As even the strictest practitioners of laïcité must concede, major religious shifts like this will have equally major political effects — but we are in somewhat uncharted territory as to what those effects may be. In broad strokes, this decline keeps the U.S. trailing Western Europe's religious and political evolution: the end of Christianity as a default faith and a move toward left/right politics that can be roughly characterized as socialism against nationalist populism. Yet Europe can hardly provide a clear window to our future, not least because many European states have both multi-party parliamentary systems and state churches.
Sadly, it looks to me like USA will be forever stuck with Christianity, and a peculiarly mindless and totalitarian version as well.
State churches and parliamentary systems would probably have worked out better in the long run. But those may not be the only factors:
1) Endless wars and Imperialism
2) Corrupt Chamber of Commerce subsidizing evangelicals
3) Lack of taxation on Churches and the Oligarchs who fund them
4) Neutered and boring "spectator" political system
5) Lack of alternative social amenities, perhaps by design
6) Mobster monopolies of drinking and fun establishments so they're all awful
7) Blue laws and drug prohibition
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