Silent majority

The silent majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly. The term was popularized by U.S. President Richard Nixon in a televised address on November 3, 1969, in which he said, "And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support." In this usage it referred to those Americans who did not join in the large demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the time, who did not join in the counterculture, and who did not participate in public discourse. Nixon, along with many others, saw this group of Americans as being overshadowed in the media by the more vocal minority.

Preceding Nixon by half a century, it was employed in 1919 by Calvin Coolidge's campaign for the 1920 presidential nomination. Before that, the phrase was used in the 19th century as a euphemism referring to all the people who have died, and others have used it before and after Nixon to refer to groups of voters in various nations of the world.

Early meanings

Euphemism for the dead

"The majority" or "the silent majority" can be traced back to the Roman writer Petronius, who wrote abiit ad plures (he is gone to the majority) to describe deceased people, since the dead outnumber the living. (In 2023 there were approximately 14.6 dead for every living person.) The phrase was used for much of the 19th century to refer to the dead. Phrases such as "gone to a better world", "gone before", and "joined the silent majority" served as euphemisms for "died". In 1902, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan employed this sense of the phrase, saying in a speech that "great captains on both sides of our Civil War have long ago passed over to the silent majority, leaving the memory of their splendid courage."

In 1883, an anonymous author calling himself "A German" wrote a memorial to Léon Gambetta, published in The Contemporary Review, a British quarterly. Describing French Conservatives of the 1870s, the writer opined that "their mistake was, not in appealing to the country, but in appealing to it in behalf of a Monarchy which had yet to be defined, instead of a Republic which existed; for in the latter case they would have had the whole of that silent majority with them."

In 1919, Madison Avenue advertising executive and Republican Party supporter Bruce Barton employed the term to bolster Calvin Coolidge's campaign for the 1920 Republican Presidential nomination. In Collier's magazine, Barton portrayed Coolidge as the everyman candidate: "It sometimes seems as if this great silent majority had no spokesman. But Coolidge belongs with that crowd: he lives like them, he works like them, and understands."

Referring to Charles I of England, historian Veronica Wedgwood wrote this sentence in her 1955 book The King's Peace, 1637–1641: "The King in his natural optimism still believed that a silent majority in Scotland were in his favour."

Richard Nixon

While Nixon was serving in 1955 as vice-president to Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and his research assistants wrote in Kennedy's book Profiles in Courage, "Some of them may have been representing the actual sentiments of the silent majority of their constituents in opposition to the screams of a vocal minority..." In January 1956, Kennedy gave Nixon an autographed copy of the book. Nixon wrote back the next day to thank him: "My time for reading has been rather limited recently, but your book is first on my list and I am looking forward to reading it with great pleasure and interest." Nixon wrote Six Crises, some say his response to Kennedy's book, after visiting Kennedy at the White House in April 1961.

In 1967, labor leader George Meany asserted that those labor unionists (such as himself) who supported the Vietnam War were "the vast, silent majority in the nation." Meany's statement may have provided Nixon's speechwriters with the specific turn of phrase.

Barbara Ehrenreich "Overnight the press abandoned its protest", awaking "to the disturbing possibility that they had grown estranged from a sizable segment of the public." Soon thereafter, journalist Theodore H. White analyzed the previous year's elections, writing "Never have America's leading cultural media, its university thinkers, its influence makers been more intrigued by experiment and change; but in no election have the mute masses more completely separated themselves from such leadership and thinking. Mr. Nixon's problem is to interpret what the silent people think, and govern the country against the grain of what its more important thinkers think." Feeling very much besieged, Nixon went on national television to deliver a rebuttal speech on November 3, 1969, where he outlined "my plan to end the war" in Vietnam. In his speech Nixon stated his policy of Vietnamization would lower American losses as the South Vietnamese Army would take on the burden of fighting the war; announced his willingness to compromise provided that North Vietnam recognized South Vietnam; and finally promised he would take "strong and effective measures" against North Vietnam if the war continued. Nixon also implicitly conceded to the anti-war movement that South Vietnam was really not very important as he maintained that the real issue was the global credibility of the United States, as he stated his belief that all of America's allies would lose faith in American promises if the United States were to abandon South Vietnam. </blockquote>Thirty-five years later, Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan recalled using the phrase in a memo to the president. He explained how Nixon singled out the phrase and went on to make use of it in his speech: "We [had] used 'forgotten Americans' and 'quiet Americans' and other phrases. And in one memo I mentioned twice the phrase 'silent majority', and it's double-underlined by Richard Nixon, and it would pop up in 1969 in that great speech that basically made his presidency." Buchanan noted that while he had written the memo that contained the phrase, "Nixon wrote that speech entirely by himself."

Nixon's constituency

Nixon's silent majority referred mainly to the older generation (those World War II veterans in all parts of the U.S.) but it also described many young people in the Midwest, West and in the South, many of whom eventually served in Vietnam. The Silent Majority was mostly populated by blue collar white people who did not take an active part in politics: suburban, exurban and rural middle class voters. According to columnist Kenneth Crawford, "Nixon's forgotten men should not be confused with Roosevelt's", adding that "Nixon's are comfortable, housed, clad and fed, who constitute the middle stratum of society. But they aspire to more and feel menaced by those who have less."

In his famous speech, Nixon contrasted his international strategy of political realism with the "idealism" of a "vocal minority." He stated that following the radical minority's demands to withdraw all troops immediately from Vietnam would bring defeat and be disastrous for world peace. Appealing to the silent majority, Nixon asked for united support "to end the war in a way that we could win the peace." The speech was one of the first to codify the Nixon Doctrine, according to which, "the defense of freedom is everybody's business—not just America's business." After giving the speech, Nixon's approval ratings which had been hovering around 50% shot up to 81% in the nation and 86% in the South.

In January 1970, Time put on their cover an abstract image of a man and a woman representing "Middle America" as a replacement for their annual "Man of the Year" award. Publisher Roy E. Larsen wrote that "the events of 1969 transcended specific individuals. In a time of dissent and 'confrontation', the most striking new factor was the emergence of the Silent Majority as a powerfully assertive force in U.S. society." Larsen described how the silent majority had elected Nixon, had put a man on the moon, and how this demographic felt threatened by "attacks on traditional values".

Nixon's use of the phrase was part of his strategy to divide Americans and to polarize them into two groups. He used "divide and conquer" tactics to win his political battles, and in 1971 he directed Agnew to speak about "positive polarization" of the electorate. The "silent majority" shared Nixon's anxieties and fears that normalcy was being eroded by changes in society. The other group was composed of intellectuals, cosmopolitans, professionals and liberals, those willing to "live and let live."

Later use in the United States

thumb|[[Donald Trump and supporters attend a rally in Muscatine, Iowa, in January 2016. Multiple supporters hold up signs, which read "The silent majority stands with Trump".]]

The phrase "silent majority" has also been used in the political campaigns of Ronald Reagan during the 1970s and 1980s, the Republican Revolution in the 1994 elections, and the victories of Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.

During Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, he said at a campaign rally on July 11, 2015, in Phoenix, Arizona, that "the silent majority is back, and we're going to take our country back". He also referred to the silent majority in subsequent speeches and advertisement, as did the press when describing those who voted for his election as President in 2016. In the midst of the George Floyd protests, he once again invoked the silent majority. CNN analyst Harry Enten described that Trump's support fits better with the term "loud minority", based on the fact that neither did he win the popular vote in 2016 nor did he hit 50% in any live interview opinion poll throughout his first presidency. Jay Caspian Kang argues that some politicians and analysts (Jim Clyburn, Chuck Rocha) feel the unexpected increase in support for Donald Trump among blacks and Latinos in the 2020 election reflects a new silent majority (including some non-whites) reacting against calls for defunding the police and the arrogance of "woke white consultants".

The phrase was also used by Quebec Premier Jean Charest during the 2012 Student Strike to refer to what he perceived as the majority of the Quebec voters supporting the tuition hikes.

The term was used by British Prime Minister David Cameron during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum; Cameron expressed his belief that most Scots opposed independence, while implicitly conceding they may not be as vocal as the people who support it.

In 2019, the Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, acknowledged the quiet Australians in his federal election victory speech.

In the face of rising opposition, the Hong Kong government often claims there is a silent majority that is too afraid to voice their support, and a group called "Silent Majority for Hong Kong" was set up in 2013 to counteract the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement. In 2019, when the democratic movement became increasingly violent, the Carrie Lam administration and Beijing authorities appealed to the "silent majority" to dissociate themselves from the radical activists and to vote for the pro-government camp in the District Council elections, which were seen as a de facto referendum on the protests. However, with a record turnout of over 70%, the pro-democracy camp won 80% of overall seats and controlled 17 out of the 18 District Councils. A commentator of The New Statesman deduced that Hong Kong's true silent majority stood on the side of the democratic cause. Foreign Policy stated that Beijing had been confident of a huge pro-government victory as a result of a delusion created by its own propaganda.

Silent majority

Early meanings

Euphemism for the dead

Richard Nixon

Nixon's constituency

Later use in the United States

See also

References

Further reading

External links