An interesting notion is circulating in the United States. I'm not sure where it comes from. In private conversations, I've ventured it myself. Usually I've been called names. Nihilist. Trotskyite. Troublemaker. But now, this idea is coming from other, much more respectable sources.

It goes like this: in this year's US presidential election, the most desirable outcome for those who believe in long- term, meaningful change is the re-election of George W Bush. That's why I get called the names. Most of my friends are what Americans call "liberals" or "leftists". I'd say, for the most part, they are actually middle class people with a conscience.

Anyway, to such people, whether Americans, Britons or South Asians, another four years of robber baron economics and piracy as foreign policy is anathema.

I've got a different point of view. I say we need more of the extremism and neo-Imperialism of George Bush. Four years might be too much but that's what we're stuck with, thanks to the American political system. But why, oh why, you might ask, do we need more Bush?

Well, it's simple. American politics needs a jolt. It's quite simply too comfortable, too close to big money, too unwilling to engage with issues of class, race and poverty at home and religious zealotry and corporate malpractise abroad. That includes Republicans and Democrats. It really doesn't matter which party is in the White House. It's been that way ever since Ronald Reagan shifted the political goal posts in his country into ground once occupied only by extremists and reclusive multi-millionaires-the far right.

To bring the goalposts back, the Democrats need to change. They need to abandon big money and the centrism championed by Bill Clinton whose noteworthy achievement in office in the 1990s were to push millions of poor people off welfare in order to balance the national budget. The party needs to return to its roots as representative of the Amercian poor, not its enemy. The party needs to oppose corporate interests, not beg them for campaign funds. The party needs to lead the debate on reform in American, not stifle it.

So who else thinks this way? Who else is wondering whether four more years of the ineptness and arrogance of the current American government might be the way to discredit the current neo-conservative right and its cheerleaders in the media? American's biggest trade union for one, the Service Employees International Union. The leader, Andrew Stern, told the Washington Post last week that he would be voting for John Kerry in the next election, but hoping for the re-election of George Bush.

Stern is one of many people working for a re-alignment of the left in America. Not all of them are traditional lefties either. Among them is George Soros, the billionaire speculator, and a number of New Technology millionaires from the Silicon Valley. Other union leaders and academics also think this way.

It's not that they're urging people to vote for Mr Bush. It's more that they're genuinely interested in real change on their own side of the political spectrum. And they think that shock therapy-four more years in the political wilderness, four more years that could cause international havoc-might just be the way ahead.

We live, I daresay, in interesting times.