As the the Bush presidency recedes into the past and the Obama era begins, America stands at the crossroads of history. Will we stick to the same stale ideas that have failed us before? Or will we embrace new thinking that truly lives up to the challenges of the moment and tries to shape our future for the better?

Democracy has always believed that the second question must be answered with a resounding “Yes!” In this issue, Charles Kupchan and Adam Mount, international affairs experts at Georgetown, propose a new, post-Bush progressive foreign policy doctrine: “The Autonomy Rule.” Dalton Conley, an NYU professor and author of the recently released Elsewhere, U.S.A., calls for the creation of an American sovereign wealth fund to strengthen our economy. And Elaine Kamarck, who oversaw some of the most essential reforms of the Clinton years, advises the Obama Administration on the difficulty of not just passing reforms, but implementing them over the long-term. Finally, in addition to our other pieces, take a look at Matt Bai’s article on the political implications of the Internet. Bai, whose reporting for The New York Times Magazine is often agenda-setting, writes that while not all the evidence is in, it seems that the Web is indeed a good thing for our democracy.