Every four years the eyes of the world turn towards the United States as it elects its President.

Across six time zones US citizens queue round street corners to cast their ballot.

American presidential elections are a cocktail of serious statecraft and show business. Television and imagery has been an integral part of electioneering since the first televised debate was held between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960.

In contrast, it would take half a century for any head-to-head election debate in Britain. We, on this side of the Atlantic, have spent decades gazing in a mix of wonder, shock and awe at the very different style of democracy that has blossomed in the US.

The battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to become the 45th President of the United States has already been turning heads towards America and the election is still several months away.

Americans won't go to the polls until November 8.

This election however seems to be provoking a lot more shock than most others. From the tone of the campaign to some of the candidates', largely Trump's, policies.

Brits are gazing towards their cousins and wondering 'what exactly is in the soda over there?'

Donald Trump has been transported from a reality TV star to being only inches from the nuclear launch codes in a very short space of time.

The New Yorker is promising voters he will "make America great again" by combating economic globalisation with American protectionism.

One of the key ideas behind his plan is to raise wages in the United States by stemming the flow of illegal Mexican immigrants into the country. The Pew Research Centre estimates that in 2014 there were 11.3m illegal immigrants in the United States, with 5.6m of them hailing from Mexico.

That's more than the entire population of Scotland to give the number some perspective.

To end the practice, Trump is proposing to build a "big and beautiful" 2000 mile long wall across the United States' southern border.

He also promises that he will "make Mexico pay for it," not the American taxpayer. To do this he proposes making it illegal for Mexicans in the United States to transfer money to Mexico.

This practice, called remittance, provided the nation with greater foreign investment than its oil revenues in 2015.

Trump, therefore, argues it would be in the Mexican government's interest to pay a one-time-only fee to the United States to build the wall. If not, he will cut off the multi-billion dollar remittance payments from north of the border.

His second migration policy is even more controversial: a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslim immigration in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting in December 2015.

Trump believes the ban would help protect America from Islamist terrorism.

In recent weeks the policy has been expanded to not just Muslims but residents of countries that have "been compromised by terrorism" and has not ruled out including nations such as France on the list.

He said: "I'm looking now at territory. People were so upset when I used the word Muslim. Oh, you can't use the word Muslim. Remember this. And I'm okay with that, because I'm talking territory instead of Muslim."

If he is victorious, Trump will be the first President since Dwight D. Eisenhower to get the biggest job in politics without ever previously holding elected office. Though, Eisenhower did have the experience of being Supreme Commander of all Allied forces in Europe and defeating Nazism from North Africa to West Berlin in the Second World War.

Even if he does not win, Trump will almost certainly have moved the parameters of the debate on immigration and brought policy positions, once at home only on the populist right, to mainstream American politics for at least a generation.

Without stepping foot onto Air Force One, Trump will have changed America.

Clinton has been the favourite to clinch victory in the contest since she announced her intention to stand for the Democratic Party's nomination.

While her opponent has never held elected office and has always been on the fringes of American politics, Clinton is steeped in the fabric of mainstream politics in the United States.

Most Brits know her as a former First Lady but she has also been a Senator for eight years and held the highly prized job of Secretary of State for three years across the end and beginning of President Obama's first and second terms.

Her first job in the White House was of a supportive role to her husband while her second stint in the building brought her right into the intense decision making rooms of a Presidential administration.

She watched on as US Navy Seals killed Bin Laden and was responsible for sending Ambassador Stevens to Benghazi, Libya where he and three other Americans would die in an attack by Islamist militants in 2012.

Stevens was the first serving Ambassador to die while serving the United States since 1988.

A strong foreign policy stance against Islamism is a key plank of her campaign, though it has not been discussed at length in Britain with most commentators focusing on Clinton's broadly centre-left domestic policies.

If President, Clinton would intensify the air campaign against ISIS and provide greater support to pro-opposition ground forces such as the Kurds.

On the home front, their is clear blue water between her and Trump.

Clinton wants to increase taxes on households who earn over $2m and also on assets held for less than six years to encourage long term over short term investment. She would also ban bankers from receiving bonuses if the company incurs "major losses".

"We need to get the wealthy and the corporations to pay more of their fair share," she said in January.

If the pundits are correct, and let's face it they have been wrong on a lot of political questions in the past 12 months, Hillary Clinton will be the first woman to hold the office of President of the United States.

What is remarkable is just how little that fact is being repeated in election commentary. Compare and contrast the level of discussion surrounding Obama's ethnicity in 2008 to Clinton's gender today.

With such differing world outlooks, the differing genders of the candidates seems largely unimportant.

America stands at a crossroads between not a man and a woman, but between isolationism and world leadership.