“It’s like choosing between a gangster and a fraud,” my animated Uber driver claimed as he drove me from Evanston to Chicago.

I always enjoy talking to my Uber drivers. Almost all of them have an interesting story and equally love to converse with their passengers. You never know who is going to pick you up and that is part of the fun. I have been driven by the animator of some of the world’s most famous video game characters, investment bankers making hundreds of thousands of dollars who drive solely for the relaxation and conversation, refugees straight from the crisis in Syria, and ex-criminals just out of jail trying to turn their lives around.

My Uber driver was a first generation immigrant from the Middle East with two children born in the US. As a Muslim immigrant, everything about him would suggest he would for certain be a huge advocate for Hillary Clinton and completely anti-Trump. However, like this crazy election, nothing is for certain.

I said 6 months ago that if come election day Trump was within 5% of Hillary, he would steal it.

Well according to the BBC poll, which averages various other polls, Trump is 4 points behind Hillary.  So why do I believe he could steal it? Well, a concept I have called ‘the rise of the silent right’ which also was a huge factor in the Brexit referendum.

Before I explain this concept, I feel I should disclose my views. While I am not a huge fan of either candidate, if I had a vote it would certainly be for Hillary. The choice is not difficult to make since Donald Trump has publicly expressed a desire to cancel the visa I need to stay in the US, calling it a visa which “takes jobs away from Americans.”

So what is the rise of the silent right? Well to put it simply, it is the group of people who are developing or solidifying more conservative views, many of whom may not have had these views previously. However, a rebellion against traditional and conventional politics and politicians has occurred causing the silent right to emerge. I have narrowed the reasons for this emergence down to 3 major factors, although I am certain there are more:

• Allegations of corruption, lying and hypocrisy in mainstream politics
• Broken promises
• A growing frustration of excessive political correctness 

The silent right are appropriately named ‘silent’ because of another major factor. It is because these people may not voice their views publicly due to fear of being labeled.

In this day and age it seems anyone with non-mainstream views is labeled in a derogatory manner. While I was for the UK staying in the EU, I did not like how those who were for Brexit were labeled as xenophobic and racist. Of course many may have been, but we cannot generalize like this.

There are good and bad people of both sides just as there are good and bad supporters of both Clinton and Trump, and generalizing and labeling Trump or Brexit supporters in a negative manner simply causes more people to join the silent right. We saw this with Brexit where the more the brexit supporters were labeled as racist, the more support they gained. This is exactly what has happened with Trump supporters and may be why he may win. After all, he claims he will pull off a “Brexit style victory on election day.”

If Clinton wins, I will breathe a sigh of relief, but my worry is that a future candidate with extreme views may learn from this election, taking the positives from what Trump did well to rally up such support and give himself such a good chance, but also learning from his downright stupid mistakes and remarks which could arguably cost him the election. Should a future dangerous candidate learn from this, we then may indeed find ourselves in a dangerous situation.

Regardless of who wins, this election has been proof that many people have become disenfranchised with our conventional politics. Future politicians need to restore our democracy with the basic values it was founded upon: openness, honesty, integrity, and respect for each other, regardless of whom we support.

While there are Hillary and Trump posters on every other window, campaigners shouting support for their preferred candidate on every street corner, and murmur of conversations in every coffee shop about how evil one candidate is and how incredible the other is, the deciding factor of this election cannot be heard.

It is the people who have kept to themselves, not taken part in any polls, and not expressed their positions publicly – The Silent Right. The question is how many of them there really are. We will find out the answer soon.