There is nobody on earth who has the vaguest clue about US politics who would a year ago have predicted that Donald Trump (What? have you gone mad?) would be leading for the Republican nomination and a socialist Bernie Sanders (Who ? And there is no such thing as socialism in the US. It is political death!) is leading for the Democrats. And both by a country mile. Moreover both now have traction. They can be stopped, but it may be too late. The reason is simple. Right across the world there is a build up of resentment against political establishments in every country and that contagion has now reached America. Both Sanders and Trump have one thing in common. They are anti political establishment. There is a very big tide of anger out there and it will not be easy to halt it.
Ominously there are signs of difficulty in the global economy. Oil and and shares are plunging, growth is slowing and bank shares are being dumped. Deutsche Bank is widely rumoured to be in trouble. These are not good signs. If things get bad voters will round on all who they think have put them there.
2016 is going to be an historic election year. What we do not know is what kind of history it will make. The kind in which the establishment took back control, or the sort where it lost it altogether.
