As this weirdest of general elections grinds on through the increasing dark and cold, you can pick up a striking sound: partisans and activists loyal to either Labour or the remain cause becoming exasperated with the public. Over the weekend, their annoyance and bafflement was triggered by opinion polls that suggested a widening Tory lead: “Why am I so out of sync with voters? What is wrong with people?” asked one tweeter. But over the past three weeks there has also been a sense of another gap: between people feeling wound up and passionate, and an electorate that still seems cynical and detached.

The ocean of cynicism maintained by social media means that big political figures tend to be figures of fun

“Apathy” would be the wrong word, because there’s no lack of political engagement. On the road over the past three weeks, I have met people who will be voting Labour and hoping that doing so might help to fix the dire state of our public services, and a homelessness crisis that seems to get worse by the week. Former Tory voters have told me they are so incensed by Brexit that they have resolved to support the Liberal Democrats; lots of people have bought into the idea that we must “get Brexit done”, and therefore decided to back the Conservatives. But just about everyone has expressed their opinions with an ingrained scepticism.

To some extent, these things are always true of people’s attitudes to politics and politicians. But at this rate, even if there are huge contrasts between the parties and their plans, we are hardly heading for another 1945, 1979 or 1997. Events and public sentiment are out of sync: the election’s paradox consists of a tangle of factors – Brexit, austerity, Labour’s thoroughgoing socialism and the fate of the two main party leaders and their respective projects – meshing together to form a hugely significant moment, but with most of the public still refusing to buy into any real sense of drama.

The wintry conditions do not help. Neither does the fact that this is the UK’s third general election in four years, taking place in the midst of post-referendum tortures that have gone round in circles for the last three (if you are in Scotland, you will have had two referendums in five years and, as in Wales, an additional contest for your national parliament). The ocean of cynicism and irreverence maintained by social media means that big political figures tend to be figures of fun, while the idea of an election as some great collective debate is weakened by sealed-off echo chambers and endless personalisation. But even so, there are still questions to be asked about our current politics, and why the leaders of the main parties have so far seemed like actors in someone else’s play.

Successful politicians and parties tell stories: narratives about our shared national past, the things that might allow us to thrive and those that get in the way, and our possible shared future. But two out of the three established parties seem to have no story at all. The Lib Dems, as often happens, have been revealed as clunky opportunists. On the Tory side, “get Brexit done” might be one of the few slogans that has cut through to the public, and the fact that the Conservatives are essentially promising to make politics stop chimes with the disaffected public mood. But a few old tunes about cracking down on crime and the constant traducing of Jeremy Corbyn hardly amount to a coherent narrative. Even if Boris Johnson is now as likely to win a Commons majority as some people suggest, it is worth bearing in mind the verdict of the psephological guru John Curtice, that he is “the most unpopular new prime minister in polling history”.

Play Video 0:47 Jeremy Corbyn defends pledge to stay neutral in second referendum – video

When it launched its manifesto last week, Labour confirmed that it had very ambitious ideas – even if Corbyn’s painful neutrality on Brexit remains a huge source of tension. But Corbyn has a clear story, of sorts: of a hapless, often hopeless country somehow taken prisoner by – to quote from his speech – “the bankers, the billionaires and the establishment”, who may or may not be the same people as “the tax dodgers, the bad bosses and the big polluters”. Citing Franklin Roosevelt, Corbyn suggested he “welcomes their hatred”; the best way to start to make Britain fairer, it seems, is to draw them out of their mansions and expose them to as much public fury as possible.

The logic behind this stuff is clear enough: it draws on the kind of textbook populism that has been in the ascendant for the past five years all over the world, and is mostly located on the right rather than the left. To the extent that it vividly talks about no end of very real inequalities and imbalances and identifies their alleged source, perhaps it will find an audience. But in a country wearied by the furies of Brexit and the shouting people see whenever they make the mistake of watching Question Time, I am not sure it speaks to what many people want from politics. After Nigel Farage’s nastiness, Boris Johnson’s brazen untruths, and the misanthropic nonsense that has been echoing out of the White House, it may sound like yet more faux-macho belligerence. For anyone on the left, this goes into something fundamental: can you really root progressive, hopeful, human politics in blame, resentment and loathing?

There are other problems. Big, transformative ideas require dedicated effort, over years – the building of coalitions across society, and the kind of open, pluralistic mindset that too many Labour people seem to have long mislaid, and are hardly going to rediscover in three weeks flat. Boldness, moreover, always demands reassurance: convincing people that comparable things have been accomplished before and that they can therefore be done again (the essential message of “take back control”, “make America great again”, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent insistence that Bernie Sanders’ run for the Democratic nomination is “bringing the party home”). Beyond the odd reference to the evils of Thatcherism and the usual fuzzy tributes to 1945, something is still lacking in Labour’s thinking. Many people will see its plans for what Corbyn rather awkwardly calls an “investment blitz” as having fallen from the sky, when they ought to feel like the expression of things that are already woven into our past and present, waiting for the chance to be revived.

Play Video General election 2019: Question Time leaders special – video highlights

Though Corbyn talks in terms of hope, his broad-sweep view of the country is too often reducible to an endless expanse of dodgy landlords, empty streets and boarded-up shops. But the best political stories draw on the kind of optimism grounded in people’s everyday experiences. To those who believe that Brexit Britain is an awful dystopia this may sound strange, but when I am out reporting these days, I do not tend to return full of misery. Talking to people about their experiences is often infuriating and upsetting. But I also usually marvel at the way that people work together, the capacity of communities to change things at the grassroots, and small kindnesses that bridge social divides. Beyond a belligerent Brexit hardcore, what millions of people essentially want seems simple enough – security, community, and some spirit of togetherness. When the pollster Deborah Mattinson recently asked voters to fill in the blank in “Make Britain … again”, it was telling that they chose “calm”, “normal” and “one nation”. People await something that can inspire their confidence that such modest hopes might be realised, and give them faith that the country might at last heal its wounds. Modern politics moves fast; the prevailing numbers may yet shift. But less than three weeks from polling day, what might turn this election from a distant spectacle into a watershed moment has yet to arrive. If you are involved in politics or brimming with the passions yet to grip most voters, do not blame the public for that absence: you have work to do, before it is too late.

• John Harris is a Guardian columnist