The New 'Silent Majority'

In 1969, President Nixon famously referred to those who still supported the American effort in Vietnam as the "silent majority", a reference to the fact that the anti-war movement, very vocal and widespread, was overshadowing the majority across the country who felt differently.

In the past few years, with the conservative movement becoming ever more vocal and widespread, I've seen numerous references to the idea that liberals and moderates are the new 'silent majority'. I would definitely agree with that sentiment. America is described as being a center-right country, but I don't believe that is true (at least in relation to how far to the right the current 'center' has been moved anyway). Numerous issues supported by the majority of Americans- environmental protection, separation of church and state, civil liberty protections, cautious foreign policy, abortion rights, etc- are the ones the party in power are fighting against. Support for many of these issues is portrayed by the Republicans and the media pundits as being 'out of the mainstream', despite what all polling data indicates otherwise. Even in the case of President Bush, as his poll numbers continued to fall, pundits like Chris Matthews said things like "Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs". For the past five years, many people have spoken out on the ways these issues have been handled, but they have been treated with little attention or respect, other than as some sort of novelty. That isn't to say that liberals or moderates' voices haven't been heard (they have been), but that they are dismissed as not being 'mainstream' when, in many cases, they are.

The Philadelphia Daily News' Will Bunch explores this new silent majority-

They are not the people posting multiple diaries on blogs like Daily Kos, or obsessing over the latest doings inside the Beltway -- as you probably do if you're reading this. They're too busy making a modest living.

They are, instead, the people that we see so often when TV or radio tries some rare "man on the street" reporting -- bashing the war in Iraq or asking the government to stay out of their bedroom, and occasionally getting funny looks from reporters who fail to realize just how "mainstream" these points of view actually are.

They are cab drivers and nurses, waitresses and insurance agents. They don't read blogs but most of them vote -- and so it's why the Democrats got the most ballots for president in 1992, 1996, and 2000, and came within an eyelash of ousting "a war president" in 2004.

The things that this "silent majority" believes may not boil down easily to a single word or a short soundbite, but they are common sense ideals, and truly American. And so they believe in family values and probably in a God as well, but not in the government intruding on their private lives, let along reading their emails. They believe in a strong defense, but not in wars that America starts first. They believe in free-market capitalism, as long as rich people pay their fair share and the environment is protected.

Amen.

The truly sad part is how poorly the Democrats have done of reaching out to this majority- their natural base.

[PS- As Digby illustrates, the modern extremists aren't on the left. ]