BLIMEY, who would have thought it – on Tuesday Donald Trump and Bernie Saunders won the New Hampshire primary for the Republican and Democratic parties respectively.

So what? I hear the good readers of the Argus ask themselves, before turning to read something more relevant to life on the Sussex coast.

But this is relevant – very.

It’s a cliche I know, but whoever leads the US essentially leads the world – for good or evil.

There is much talk about the decline of the US and the rise of China on the economic front and Russia on the military front and while these nations might indeed be “rising”, make no mistake, the US is still the world’s leading economic and military power.

So whoever sits in the White House is almost as important for Sussex County here as it is for Sussex County in Delaware.

The process of electing an American president is even more drawn out than our six-week dash for the polls. American voters won’t be voting for their president until November. But between now and then the two major parties will be involved in a lengthy and costly nationwide exercise of primaries and caucuses aimed at deciding which candidate will eventually win the nomination at their party’s conventions in the summer.

But who will they be choosing between? Until recently everyone had been assuming that the blue side (confusingly for us that is the Democrats’ colour, the left of centre party) would be represented by Hilary Clinton – but that now ain’t necessarily so.

She’s being challenged by Bernie Sanders who – wait for it – happily campaigns under the banner of being a “democratic socialist”. In this country we have to go back to Michael Foot’s unsuccessful election campaign in 1983 to find a Labour leader who would be content to having himself so described.

But Bernie Sanders has shocked the pundits. He fought Clinton to a tie in rural Iowa – not seen as his natural hunting ground – and wiped the floor with her in New Hampshire, gaining a whopping 60 per cent of the vote.

The pundits are still saying that once the majority of the states have held primaries the Sanders bandwagon will cease to roll but the pundits (me included) were telling you last year that no party was likely to win a majority in the UK General Election.

Sanders seems to have struck a chord with large sections of American voters, especially the young, who feel disappointed and disillusioned, particularly in the way that the big corporations, and Wall Street, seem to be allowed to play by different rules from the rest of the population.

Hilary Clinton is seen, as she was last time in her unsuccessful battle with Barack Obama, to be the “establishment” candidate. That’s a label that is today the kiss of death for politicians of both the left and right. In the red corner, Donald Trump – the US version of Lord (you’re fired ) Sugar – is also seen as the anti-establishment candidate. And, just as with Sanders and the Democrats, the pundits are saying that he won’t win the Republican nomination. They say this because Trump neither has the backing of the more centrist Republican Party establishment nor does he have the wholehearted support of the far right, the Tea Party element.

For, despite his headline-grabbing rhetoric that has made him appear to be on the far right – banning all Muslims from entering the US was one memorable example – he’s also in favour of government support for business. Trump the businessman trumps Trump the politician.

But who knows? 2015 was the year when voters across the world staged their own revolt against the establishment – be it Scottish voters all but wiping out Labour in Scotland to Greek voters thumbing their nose at the EU by twice electing the left wing Syriza party.

Will the voters in the US do the same? We’ll have a clearer picture after Super Tuesday on March 1 when a dozen US states, mostly in the south (a region that is not currently regarded as a stronghold for either Trump or Sanders) hold simultaneous primaries. But we’re now sailing in uncharted waters and if any expert confidently says he knows what is going to happen then you can be sure of one thing – he’s no expert.

I can state with confidence that I have no idea how things will develop but if this trend continues, I would love to be a fly on the wall in the White House in 2020 when either President Trump meets with Prime Minister Corbyn or President Sanders sits down for a chat with Prime Minister Farage.

  • Ivor Gaber is Professor of Journalism at the University of Sussex and has covered US elections for the BBC and ITV News