... way above the normal level of Salon and kind of Toynbeeish in its scope.

Probably the energy source of the Fourth Republic will be nuclear. Has to be. Certainly the invasion of Iraq and the rise of the Siberian oil oligarchs heralds the end of the age of oil and the end of the age of Henry Ford.

Note: I'm talking about the material, real-world manufacturing and utility economy, not the illusory "information economy" beloved of globalization enthusiasts in the 1990s, who pretended that deindustrialization by outsourcing was a higher state of industrialism.

I've figured Michael Lind out. Like many bright people, he has great ideas mixed in with terrible ones. But for whatever reason, in his case he's incapable of distinguishing between them. Thus he gives us this interesting, if a bit forced, framework in which to view American political cycles — and then throws in a bizarre quip about how the information age doesn't really exist, as if it was all grinding out of the same mill.

The problem with every single one of the articles he's penned for Salon is that they read like first drafts, bespeaking pretty much no real critical examination. The author has not gone back and re-read his stuff thinking, "Hmm, does this idea really hold? Am I running faster here than my rhetorical feet can keep up with?"

I like Salon articles that tell me something I didn't know, or give me a different view, especially about political science, sociology and so on. Thank you.

This is extremely clever and very forced. The devil in the details would certainly prick the bubble with his pitchfork. It's like a terrific junior seminar paper by a really bright kid who has read just enough to have a wonderful idea but not enough to know that the world is just not that clear-cut or schematic.

And the assumtion that the United States has an industrial future may be a chimera. What if, to jump on another "big picture" thesis, our era of imperial "glory" was because we dominated the oil age, just as Britain was the alpha power during the coal age? They bestrided the world because they had coal and knew what to do with it. We dominated the world because we had oil and knew what to do with it. Perhaps, just perhaps, the golden age is no more? I mean, we haven't got a largely unexploited continet to bilk for all its worth any more. Perhaps, just as we must shrink to balance our consumption with our production, and not live on credit, the age of American expansion and hegemony is drawing to a close?

I agree with J. Nathan, it is time to start reading intelligent stuff and not the usual punditlogic crap.

I know personally two of the three people Mr. Lind refers to in regard to the next republic -- Bruce Ackerman, who has come to my school several times, who has argued with me and other colleagues about his ideas of participation, and whose magnum opus "We the People" I have reviewed, and Ted Lowi, who was a teacher of mine and has been and is is a mentor. It is deeply gratifying to see that a public intellectual like Lind is reflecting at this level of sophistication.

But I have to say, Obama, if he does it, will begin a 5th republic -- for better or worse, the Reagan period, culminating with Bush, was not simply an interrugnum, but represented a terrible period of rule, a republic that we cannot disavowal.

they wrote a new constitution.

americans began (the second time, 1789) with elective monarchy, or elective oligarchy if you prefer, and have made no transfer of power from the political elite in congress or the white house. extending the franchise is valuable, but not different in kind. it remains an oligarchy with a king whose powers are quite similar to those held by george the third, save tenure. little wonder that george the forty-third was able to wreak destruction at home and abroad, holding so much power and unrestrained by the constitution because the other officers of state were submissive in the interests of party.

if obama says: "we should have citizen initiative", it will be the second american revolution, a genuine transfer of power from the elite to the people. the harbingers will be low-flying pigs in formations spelling out "aux armes mes citroyens, formez vos bataillons!"

....suspending habeus corpus, imprisoning a Congressman who publicly criticized the war; despite the pablum we are fed in grade school, he certainly had no concern whatsoever for black folk. His war against the South was un-Constitutional in the extreme.

Hamilton was a notoriously anti-democratic, aristocratic-minded misanthrope, and was responsible for the institution that plagues any hope for a true American republic to this day: a Central Bank that lead directly to our modern Federal Reserve.

You know--the same Federal Reserve that now publicly acknowledges that its sole purpose is to take from the poor and give to the rich. Bailout, anyone? I read that Freddie Mac executives just followed the lead of AIG execs and took a nice, long vacation at a swanky golf resort on that taxpayer dime....no working people allowed. Hamilton would have loved it.

And your assertion that the Louisiana Purchase and a single trade embargo are enough to qualify Jefferson as a big-government imperialist on the order of Hamilton, Lincoln, or FDR is clearly absurd; it also an absolutely shameful mis-characterization of one of our greatest Americans, the author of the Declaration of Independence.

I cannot believe that you honestly believe this nonsense, therefore you must be deliberately trying to mislead people.

...if you think you've ever seen a "Jeffersonian backlash" during your strolls through the academic textbooks, get ready. You ain't seen nothing yet.

I like big sweeping generalizations, seriously! The only thing I'd take issue with is that this new republic will not be 'blessed', if that's the right word, with a new emerging economy fueled by new technologies. At least, I don't think it will. The new technologies, like clean energy alternatives, will have to be invented or we perish.