This is probably verging too much on dystopian stuff we don't want in the setting, but in the United States at least there's always been a seething undercurrent of anti-intellectualism, most recently tapped into by Conservative Christianity and their paid political lapdogs. I could see that undercurrent being whipped into a dominant cultural force by anti-Fen efforts, possibly leading to a Luddite state not unlike (but probably not as parodically extreme) as the one in Niven and Pournelle's Falling Angels, where the U.S., in an attempt to keep itself "clean" of Handwavium begins to label almost any technology suspect and thus to be banned. While other nations at least maintain a steady state, and some advance dramatically, the U.S. would begin to backslide as both a political and technological power. And, in the grand tradition of American demagogues since time immemorial, blame anything and everything beyond its borders for its decay rather than its own policies and beliefs.
Just an idea.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Just an idea.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.