This election campaign for 2016 has highlighted and brought to surface the underlying fears, prejudices, hatred, compassion, aspirations and dreams of a whole population and exposed the major chasm between the several sections of the American population.

Like anywhere else in the world, it appears that we are ever so divided to farther extremes than we like to admit. What is worrying is that it is so blatantly evident in the presidential elections in the US, still one of the more influential countries in the world. The choice of a wrong candidate will have a major impact on world politics for the next few years.

My main interest lies in the competition between Trump and Sanders. Shame that by the time I get to write this, Sanders is already being written off by some commentators as the Democrat candidate, although having done so well and defied many odds to get to where he is now. Next big test is the California Primary on the 7th June 2016.

I see similarities developing all over the world with the more grass roots connected candidates finally making the right connections and rising to the top despite the absolutely polarising campaigns of the candidates being favoured by the media barons and business magnates. There seems to be a rise of the more socialist minded humans, at least in numbers and during the campaigns. Whether they transform into winning votes for them is always debatable. This rise of liberal socialism is partly due to the ever widening gap between the workers and the business owners, the world over and the ‘workers’ class seems to be getting huge in numbers with more of the formerly ‘senior managers’ seeing that their working conditions are being squeezed too and they are so easily pushed aside in favour of the jobs being done by technology. The other factor affecting the rise of politics of the more socialist variety is the use of technology by the ‘aware’ politicians of the tools available to them, not suggesting that they are not genuinely concerned of the widening social gaps. The honesty of such minds ensures that the human values still have a role to play in the selection of the candidates in the voters’ minds and modern politics.

Amongst the names I know, we have the Canadian President Justin Trudeau, Chief Minister of New Delhi, India – Mr Arvind Kejriwal, the current opposition leader in the UK – Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders in the US as the ones with more open policies aimed at the betterment of whole nations rather than limiting access to services to the classes who have enjoyed the power and financial stability over the last 3 centuries. The big power houses in the business world which have dominated the world’s financial markets have now come to control the services in many other sectors of life including food production and law making worldwide, which are perceived as and should be the concerns of the state. This control has been passed to the big corporates through many wretched manoeuvres which the (worst of the) Capitalist system has slowly usurped in our societies over the last 4 decades. The governments have acceded power to the corporates and greed has taken over to the extent that the standards of living of the previously comfortable middle classes are being squeezed too. Hence the rise of the candidates mentioned above, who have fearlessly tried to fight the corner for the ever expanding ‘working classes’.

The US election primaries have been fascinating as 2 totally opposing views have been aired in different parts of the nation suggesting that there are 2 absolutely polarised populations living in the same land. One professes total segregation, building of Walls (with a capital ‘W’), preventing travel in to the nation by certain peoples, diminishing women’s rights and encouraging racism and all the other negative feelings with its abhorrent campaign, whereas the other stands for the world to come together and work for the benefit of all along with building peace and harmony and financial equality (or at least some dignity) amongst the working classes. It is amazing to note that both these views resided side by side and have split the voters almost into two equal sized camps in a nation supposed to be a ‘world leader’. Extremely worrying if the one leading the more negative campaign happens to take the lead and assumes the position of the President of The United States. The current signs suggest that it is very likely to happen. God help us!