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# USA elections - Epochal? Think Long Term. Contribute to openDemocracy.
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/usa-elections-epochal-think-long-term-contribute-to-opendemocracy/
- Published: 2008-01-14T18:01:07.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:44:01.000Z
- Author: openDemocracy Supporters
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 18:59

jan14.html Dear readers, members and supporters,  
  
Thank you to all of you whose gifts keep coming to the [Think Long Term ](http://www.opendemocracy.net/about/donate)campaign.  
  
The question we posed at the start of the campaign was whether we face a new epoch. A combination of US defeat in the Middle East, economic slowdown and the dollar's fall, the realization that climate change really needs a global deal, and the retreat from a belief in the guiding principles of democracy and human rights at the highest levels of international policy-making---do all of these forces lead to global realignment?  
  
And if so, what will it bring? [Please support openDemocracy](http://www.opendemocracy.net/about/donate) to maintain our independence as we think, analyze and report all the subtlety in the big picture.  
  
We are all braced to hear a lot about the American elections this year. Godfrey Hodgson [opens our season of commentary](http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/democracy%5Fpower/elections%5Ftime%5Ffor%5Fchange) when he asks the epochal question of the American electorate: yes, America wants change. But is it a realignment in politics, an FDR-style moment? or even like the 1968 Nixon election, the moment that marks the start of 4 decades of ascendancy of the right?  
  
Godfrey Hodgson is not so sure. America wants a change from Bush because Bush failed. Where are the real, underlying shifts that make for a realignment, he asks? Not in Hilary's tears or Barak's belief, for sure.  
  
[Please give to us](http://www.opendemocracy.net/about/donate) so that we can keep commissioning articles like this. These are the articles that deliver in-depth, independent insight from those who know their subject from the inside. It is a perspective that needs real editorial and expert resources, and openDemocracy uniquely delivers this for all to consume freely on the web.  
  
Many thanks,  
  
Tony Curzon Price  
Editor-in-Chief