Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Silent Majority

It was forty years ago this month that former President Richard Nixon coined the term, "the silent majority."

Nixon used the term to refer to what he felt were a large majority of people in the U.S. who did not express their opinions publicly. In a November 1969 speech, Nixon said that the vast majority--the "silent majority"--did not participate in demonstrations against the Vietnam War, did not join the counterculture and did not participate in public discourse. Nixon, always the paranoid politician, felt that this group was overshadowed by the more vocal minority.

In honor of this anniversary, we not only salute Nixon and his attempt to convince himself that the majority of U.S. citizens supported his administration, but we also use this quote from his wife, Pat, as our quote of the week.

The former First Lady had this to say about the President's sleep habits: "Nobody could sleep with Dick. He wakes us during the night, switches on the lights, speaks into his tape recorder, or takes notes—it’s impossible."

Happy 40th anniversary to President Nixon and his "silent majority."

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