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This day next week Hillary Clinton is expected to clinch the Democratic nomination in the race for the White House.

Her Democrat challenger, Bernie Sanders, is likely to keep on fighting all the way to July 25 when the party gathers in Philadelphia for its convention.

He might cling to hopes that – due to the bizarre system under which some delegates can vote any way they like – he may yet be anointed as the man to stop Donald Trump winning the White House.

Ms Clinton will long for the day when Mr Sanders stops attacking her from the left and she is free to target all her firepower at Mr Trump – but her two opponents are tapping into a similar sense of deep indignation. If she wants to succeed Barack Obama at the White House she will need to address the conviction that something has gone badly sour in the United States.

The supporters, many of them young, who flock to Mr Sanders’ rallies and keep his campaign afloat with small donations want to see an America in which Wall St does not decide what is politically possible. They are excited by his attacks on corporate power, his commitment to free higher education and his condemnation of in-work poverty.

Likewise, Mr Trump channels the anger and hurt felt by Americans who have seen factories closed and moved overseas. A key pillar of his campaign is setting out a new relationship with China.

His website states: “We need smart negotiators who will serve the interests of American workers – not Wall St insiders that want to move US manufacturing and investment offshore.”

Trump v Wall St

There are many astonishing aspects to Mr Trump’s campaign but one of the most noteworthy is that here we have a Republican candidate setting himself up as the foe of Wall St.

Both Mr Sanders and Mr Trump have refused to accept that the forces of globalisation cannot be challenged.

Back in 2001, Tony Blair insisted that “globalisation is a fact” but the issue was how to “use the power of community to combine it with justice”.

Again, in 2005, he said: “I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalisation. You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.”

As PM, Mr Blair understood that the rise of China and India as full players in the international economy would have a revolutionary impact on the job market in the UK. He might have hoped he could devote his premiership to ensuring Britain adapted to this challenge but the events of September 11 and the invasion of Iraq forced his attention elsewhere.

Mr Trump and Mr Sanders demonstrate that in the US there are millions of people who do not want to accept globalisation as a “fact”. In Britain, the landslide election of Jeremy Corbyn to the helm of the Labour party is proof of a similar yearning for reform.

(Image: Steve Parsons/PA Wire)

Who has the power?

This is about much more than a desire for protectionism. There is a sense that citizens have lost the power to elect representatives who can make laws and set policies that will define their lives. Do decisions taken in boardrooms now trump those made in national legislatures?

The desire to reclaim sovereignty has found expression in the UK in the push for either withdrawal from the European Union or sweeping reform of it. Just as Brexiteers see Brussels as the home of unelected bureaucrats who make decisions that should be the responsibility of politicians in a national parliament, many Americans glare at Wall St and worry that its Titans issue directives to politicians rather than the other way around.

Speaking for whom?

This is why Mr Sanders can tarnish Ms Clinton each time he demands she releases the transcripts of speeches she gave at Goldman Sachs.

(Image: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

According to the Washington Post: “Since the Clintons left the White House, Bill and Hillary Clinton have been paid more than $150m from speeches alone.”

Both Tony Blair and Bill Clinton had a genius for wooing entrepreneurs and executives as they made the case that economic growth and the expansion of social justice were not mutually exclusive. This resonated with the wider electorate who were much more interested in rising incomes than in the introduction of radical left-wing policies.

As the battle for the White House enters its closing act, Ms Clinton will need to find a new tune. The electorate has not embraced Swedish-style socialism in the last four years but the optimism that buzzed among the middle classes on both sides of the Atlantic has taken a beating.

Middle class dreams dying

The escalating cost of higher education means that graduates start their working lives saddled with levels of debt that previous generations would have considered foolish if not immoral.

It is not just factory work that can be moved overseas. Increasingly, businesses in emerging economies successfully bid to provide white-collar services, with automation eliminating many traditional roles.

Young workers increasingly have to gravitate to cities for employment but affordable housing and childcare is often elusive. Meanwhile, public services – like pensions – seem destined for contraction, spurring deep concerns about how to care for beloved but infirm parents who may live far away.

Mr Trump has exploited blue-collar rage at globalisation and the fading of the American Dream but if professionals also feel like serfs an explosive and angry energy will be unleashed at the heart of the world’s biggest economy.

Just as Mr Corbyn’s election was a repudiation of Mr Blair’s embrace of big business, Mr Trump will ruthlessly work to portray the Clintons as responsible for the erosion of security and prosperity for families across America. Her challenge is to show she can lay new foundations which will allow the citizens of a weary superpower to look to the future once again with hope.