If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it be would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.
– George Eliot, Middlemarch, Chapter 20.

With the US Presidential election upon us, there has been scant defence of the “competence” let alone the “intelligence”, of electorates around the world in 2016, but I think it needs more thought. For all that is said about the cynicism of voters about politicians, not enough thought is given – also – about the ill-wind which increasingly runs the other way. Both are too pessimistic.

I say this fully aware of the peculiarity of Brexit, and the relative rise of Donald Trump. Whilst agreeing with many Liberal Democrats that voters sometimes make odd choices, I nonetheless think it is worth being specific about that oddness and what it means.

And with this at the back of my mind, I thought I would speculate on another cause of cynicism, which I postulate upon because I sense it in myself: politicians partly underestimate voters because they have an unconscious need for solipsism, which is now under threat in a world where media means we simply see so many people.

I first noticed – and repressed – this in myself as an eleven year old when I went out campaigning in Wiltshire during the 1997 election. Weeks of black-fingered “Focus” deliveries in to the campaign, and a few days before the vote, my battle-hardened Dad pointed out that it was unlikely my constituency would even be mentioned on the BBC election night show. My town – my world- with a population of 7,000, of which I maybe then knew a complex hundred, was too small to even appear in the constituency name, and amongst 650 seats, was itself also of little note. Young Ashdownite though I was, I remember finding this even more troubling than the prediction it would be won by the Tories. He was right about both.

I have felt similar fleeting pangs in more recent campaigns. Archetypal voters from political pen portraits have, it normally transpires, six reasons for their support and two reservations. More haltingly, they have day jobs, night shifts, tennis racquets, musty cheese smells, damp cigarettes, cold Rosé and shadows of sadness. I remember the person I met canvassing in Scranton, PA in 2008 who told me in perfunctory tones he was voting “Obama”, as he put his tool kit in his pick-up truck, wandering where he was travelling. It is a mind boggling concertina. And to be frank, it gives me a vague sense of dread. After canvassing and syncing MiniVan, I always wilfully zoom out. I consider the 46 million on the electoral roll a statistic, because I need to.

Curiously, I do not think my solipsism is unique. I think it may exist because as individuals we all need to live our own life. Our sense of self in the world, and specifically our feeling of potency to shape it, is inherently vulnerable to the knowledge that countless numbers live equally complex lives to our own. As George Eliot noticed, when it comes to sad things, we rationally blot people out amongst us, all the time, for our own sanity. I wonder though, unlike Eliot, we are not now placing the stupidity on others and the solipsism is a wider trait.

Whilst the challenge of ego dilution is not new, a politician’s protection from it has only recently eroded: until recently, media gave us far fewer windows to other people’s lives. From House of Cards backwards, politics seemed to play out in direct discussions between Mr Smith and Washington, or in this country, between Middlemarch and Parliament, channelled earnestly by Will Ladislaw. No more.

It is right, of course, from the perspective of strategy and psephology, to zoom out to see the wood through the trees: people with common interests can be drawn to similar ideas. We all pretend otherwise, but conformity sits alongside spontaneity in the human habit set. Numbers make this clear. Good campaigns with targeted mailings are correctly associated with election victory. Money can, indeed, buy votes.

But these are not the only factors in play. In a world of “Worcester Woman” and “Mondeo Man”, it is easy to lapse in to thinking– I know that I have– that politics is an exclusive chess game involving pundits, “messages” and exit polls. This is a bad mistake: people do notice things and do remember them. Caught in this trap, politicians sometimes forget that people are watching – and act accordingly.

I do not assert competence as a confident defence of democracy. Voters are frequently angry– and this concerns me. But this is why it is crucial we are cautious when we diagnose “stupidity” in politics. However fuzzy, there is a message in what some call “madness”–a transferred angst, or joy, of an uncertain source – whilst stupidity is just, simply, noise. Confusing stupidity with anger means we miss things. Helpfully, anger is clearer in groups than individuals. However weird it looks, there is, for instance, a message in the rise, so far, of Donald Trump.

But there is also a more hopeful message: most, I intuit, have traction in their lives. If Hillary Clinton is elected President, as looks probable, perhaps the electorate’s role in picking her should be given some acknowledgement. Occasionally there are objective truths in politics. Despite her objective flaws, based on the evidence we have so far seen, she is the better candidate. For all the necessary talk of rainbow coalitions and slick GOTV operations, perhaps the biggest single factor behind her success is the obvious comparison between the candidate accused of rape by his wife, and the candidate who vanquished Osama Bin Laden.

Representative democracy might be better appreciated by politicians if it were not for the fact we all eventually lose an election. In fact its historic record – rather than that of direct democracy – is still strong.

Over a hundred million Americans will exercise their eighty-five billion neurones on Tuesday and come to separate decisions and multiple reasons each, with one result. But by acknowledging that incomprehensibility, I think we might – paradoxically – cope better with the political comprehension: Hillary will likely win, but not well. From Dixville Notch New Hampshire to Maui Hawaii, unfathomable numbers more will be put on the “other side of silence”, by people like me, interested in politics, not just in order to make sense of them, but also to make sense of ourselves: voters are in fact – disconcertingly, but hopefully– thinking, and living, every bit as powerfully as us.

* Douglas Oliver is secretary of the Liberal Democrat History Group and is based in London.