Americans go to the polls Tuesday to express the will of the people. Their votes will send a big important message on foreign policy. There are three other elections worth paying attention to, since they send important messages as well – Brazil, Congo and Venezuela.

In Election Number One, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a second term for president of Brazil by a sizable margin. In Election Number Two, the Democratic Republic of the Congo recently held its first relatively democratic election in forty years. In Venezuela, the populist, anti-Bush leader Hugo Chavez is nearing the end of his re-election campaign and anticipates being returned to office. These three contests have lessons to teach Americans as they exercise their own democratic obligation on Tuesday, and look forward to ’08.

It’s worth pointing out that in many ways Brazil, Congo and Venezuela are very tough neighborhoods to govern – Brazil is the most unequal society in the world (after South Africa); Venezuela’s economy is run by 16 fabulously wealthy families; and Congo is one of the most violent and blood-stained failed states in the world. If any of them are holding elections that are roughly free and fair, it’s remarkable. That such societies are beginning to put forward leaders who loudly criticize inequality and the failure of orthodox economic plans should come as no surprise. The real surprise is that Brazil, Venezuela and the Congo have not (yet?) produced leaders who are even more insistent on far-reaching, deep seated societal changes, whether pursued at home or through the international system.

Brazil, Congo and Venezuela are not alone in the great disappointments their populations feel with the weak results of conventional neo-classical fixes to economic growth and social inequality. Throughout Latin America and the Middle East discontent is jumping to the surface, propelled in part by the waves of democratization that continue to wash through the developing world. (India and China, by contrast, have seen better growth.) But the lives that taxi drivers, teachers and brick layers live in Cairo, Lagos, and Mexico City are no better than they were 20 years ago. They expected more for themselves and their families, and their economies are failing to deliver. So far most are taking out their anger at the polls. But as we know all too well, some pent-up discontent gets channeled through far more lethal means. Whether we like or dislike Lula, Chavez or the next ruler of the Congo is beside the point. They reflect worrisome deeper trends.

This swelling message of global discontent should fall on sympathetic ears, or at least understanding ears, in the United States. The American middle classes themselves have known little economic growth, especially in the lower ranks. They know what it is like to be promised more in the midst of plenty, and they know what it is like when the real take home pay doesn’t reflect the rhetoric.

Tom Friedman’s mantra is that the world is flat. Not entirely; it’s still very spiky. But the income of many people in the world is exactly that, flat or declining. It is not at all clear that such conditions can sustain robust democracies either at home or abroad, decade after decade. The message from these recent and upcoming elections is that for the moment the commitment to democracy is quite visible in some very tough neighborhoods. And it’s robust here in the U.S. But let’s not press our luck. If the big gaps between haves and have nots continue, then we will see eruptions of discontent that will not be good for our long term dreams of global growth and equality for all. A progressive American foreign policy must address these issues as central to our national interest.