A Dark Age

Photo by Grottopl, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Let’s look back at world history for a moment. If you reach back to your high school or college history class, you may remember the term, “The Dark Ages.”

Reaching back further, you may recall that the Dark Ages were a period of time lasting about a thousand years (from roughly the 5th to the 15th centuries) when life was especially bleak. They were characterized by an economic downturn in which trade declined and barbarian tribes invaded the “civilized” parts of Europe. There was also a prevalence of disease, such as the infamous Black Death, often caused or exacerbated by poor sanitation and nutrition, and a decline in intellectual thought.

The Dark Ages crossed my mind recently (although I’m apparently supposed to be thinking about ancient Rome) as I watched the second Trump Administration swing into high gear. You may wonder what the connection is, and it’s tenuous at this point, but what if we are witnessing the beginning of another dark age?

We have come to take peace and prosperity for granted. Sure, we’ve had the War on Terror and other low-intensity conflicts in recent decades, but it has been about 75 years since America and the world experienced a major war. World War II was a singularly unique conflict in world history, but it wasn’t the first time (or even the second) that much of the world had been embroiled in a large and lengthy fight. To cite just a couple of examples, we usually think of the American Revolution as a war between the colonies and the British with France in a supporting role, but the truth is that the Revolution was a global war that involved most of Europe’s major powers. The Napoleonic wars a few decades later, didn’t involve the United States but included almost everyone else.

We might stop to ponder why we’ve had such a long era of peace in the wake of World War II. The answer is in the name of the period: “the Pax Americana.”

The world owes its current golden age to both hard and soft American power. America became the world’s policeman, and like many policemen, we were both resented and appreciated depending on which side of each individual international mugging you happen to be on. Policemen aren’t always liked and you don’t always want them around, but when you’re in trouble, you’re glad to see them. And like the presence of other policemen, without America at the forefront of world affairs, life over the last half-century would have been, as Thomas Hobbs famously put it, “nasty, brutish, and short.”

Enter Donald Trump and MAGA. The former and current president’s rhetoric has tapped into American fatigue with the War on Terror and concern about government spending and “foreign entanglements.” Trump has taken action to back up his rhetoric.

It may or may not be intentional, but in Donald Trump’s policies, I see frightening parallels to many of the worst aspects of the Dark Ages. First, let’s look back at why the Dark Ages occurred in the first place.

Generally, the Dark Ages are considered to have begun following the fall of the Roman Empire. (I guess maybe I was thinking of Rome after all.) Like America, Rome was a stabilizing influence on the world. Rome’s control, while often brutal and self-serving, did prevent large-scale conflicts for several hundred years. Also like America, Rome is the namesake of the period of peace known as the Pax Romana.

Rome fell after a period of decline and the rise of authoritarian caesars. There is much speculation and discussion about whether Donald Trump intends to cross the Rubicon and become an American caesar, but regardless of his plans along those lines, his policy is to effectively remove America from world leadership. Trump is the most isolationist major political figure since before World War II and if America, the only viable democratic superpower, is not the leader of the free world, the Pax Americana will end, not only in name, but in the absence of peace.

There are wars going on right now, the Russo-Ukraine War is the foremost example, but aggressive nations have been contained both by Western support for the defenders and the very real possibility that America and NATO could intervene directly. Mutual Assured Destruction has helped maintain a fragile peace. Donald Trump threatens that status quo on two fronts.

First, Trump wants to cut off American aid to Ukraine. Second, Trump is threatening the integrity of NATO, the world’s most successful military alliance, first by considering a direct withdrawal and second, by fomenting infighting among its members. The Trump Administration has done this both by threatening to annex the territory of fellow NATO members Denmark and Canada as well as by attacking the internal affairs of NATO countries and implying that it will not honor the mutual defense clause.

Fracturing NATO may not only enable Vladimir Putin to successfully complete his conquest of a democratic neighbor, it will also embolden China to move on Taiwan. If the US is unwilling to fulfill its commitment to NATO and Ukraine, why should China believe that Trump would defend a lonely island in the western Pacific?

It isn’t just the rise of barbarian states like Putin’s Russia that makes me concerned about a looming dark age. Another obvious parallel is Trump’s disruption of international trade through tariffs. International trade has raised standards of living around the world by increasing access to goods and services that would otherwise be unavailable or unaffordable. Trade also frees up time by allowing specialized producers to provide these goods and services more efficiently. As trade falters, economies will shrink and standards of living will decline.

Trump’s anti-trade policies have already begun impacting markets. Prices are rising for some products. Ironically, this includes MAGA gear and clothing, much of which is manufactured in China. Appliances and lumber are two other areas where prices have already started to rise.

The upcoming economic decline is also reflected in the stock market, which while not in a total freefall, is experiencing a sharp decline. Major indexes like the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 have fully erased their post-election “Trump bumps” and are continuing the slide on an almost daily basis. The upcoming recession will be unique in American history as a downturn that is attributable to one man’s hubris and misguided ideas.

In a parallel to Dark Age diseases, the Trump Administration has launched attacks on healthcare and science as well. The probably-unconstitutional DOGE cuts have resulted in the dismissal of scientists across the federal government. These include researchers at NASA, NOAA, the National Institutes of Health, and a myriad of other prominent agencies that include defense researchers.

Part of the United States’ preeminence in the world has been based on our scientific leadership. That status is threatened by the massive layoffs and cuts that affect our ability to do everything from maintaining our edge in advanced weaponry to predicting the weather to seeking cures for disease. As a survivor of prostate cancer, I want the government to help find a cure for that disease and others. If you or a loved one has suffered from diseases such as cancer or Alzheimer’s, cures and treatments are tantalizingly close, but firing mass numbers of researchers will waste time and cost lives. Medical research is costly but cures for deadly diseases would be money well spent.

And then there is RFKJR, our erstwhile Secretary of Health and Human Services who is working to undermine proven medical technology like vaccines. Kennedy is a fount of medical misinformation that includes skepticism of the measles vaccine, a tried and true vaccine that has been available since 1963. It is no accident that measles, once eradicated in the US, is seeing a resurgence after the recent spike in anti-vax sentiment.

Many of us don’t realize just how much the world depends on America. Our foreign aid budget, often in partnership with religious organizations, was about one percent of federal spending yet the world got a lot of bang for our bucks. Food aid provided both markets for American farm products and sustenance for impoverished people in what Trump might call “shithole” countries. American medical support helped to prevent and treat diseases in poor nations and saved countless lives. One of the most underrated and successful aid programs is George W. Bush’s PEPFAR program to combat AIDS, which has been doing more with less for more than a decade.

A Muskian accountant might argue that pennies can be saved because if more people die from lack of medical care then less food aid is required, but the truth is that America benefits from world health and stability. Healthy and prosperous countries make good trading partners for American producers (at least they did before Trump’s tariff wars), and less disease elsewhere means fewer diseases to infect Americans, a particularly important point with an anti-medical science Administration in power.

In the Dark Ages, there was no dominant world power to impose order. That won’t be true in a new dark age. The vacuum that MAGA policies leave will be filled by someone else, probably China, although there may be a series of wars to determine who becomes the new top dog.

The one thing that I can say for sure is that whoever fills the America-shaped hole in world affairs won’t be as benevolent as we were. China may fill some of the gaps in food and medical aid to poor countries, but it will be at a cost. And the cost won’t be liberalization and the advancement of personal freedoms. China is an expansionist power rather than a capitalistic one. A Chinese hegemony would more closely resemble the Roman Empire than the American trade network.

Hopefully, we won’t enter a new dark age. The MAGA policies may not take root and voters and Congress may be able to reverse Trump’s wrongheaded actions before too much damage is done. There is no counterargument to Trump and MAGA like watching the destruction of the federal government with your own eyes and experiencing destruction of the economy with your own wallet. Nevertheless, the parallels between Trump policies and the Dark Ages are more than a little unsettling.

The great Ronald Reagan once told Americans, “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

But when Reagan referenced a new dark age, he had no idea that it would be his own party that would abandon its tried-and-true principles for isolationism and economic decline.

As an aside, I also want to note that readers of the Bible may recognize the trio of war, economic collapse, and death from famine and disease from Revelation chapter 6. Do with that information what you will. I’m not making any claims, just noting another parallel.