Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[The Minsky Moment]

SEE HOW I AM CENSORED! YOU CANNOT SEE MY BLOCKED WORDS!

[Admiral Yi]

Now there's an outdated term.

[garbon]

Now there's an outdated term.

If you mean "silent majority", it was used more than a few times by Trump and his allies.

[Admiral Yi]

If you mean "silent majority", it was used more than a few times by Trump and his allies.

That may well be, but now they're neither silent nor a majority.

[Josquius]

Vocal minority is a far more accurate descriptor

[garbon]

If you mean "silent majority", it was used more than a few times by Trump and his allies.

That may well be, but now they're neither silent nor a majority.

Isn't the phrase just something useful to create an 'enemy' out of the opposition as well as highlight they've little real support? Seems appropriate for those Trumpland supporters.

[garbon]

Actually a variation just appeared in press in England:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/05/chris-whitty-keeping-covid-restrictions-will-only-delay-wave

Calum Semple, professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool, and a member of the Sage committee of experts, said there are many measures people can take to reduce the risk of spreading the virus once restrictions have been lifted.

"If we've come through 18 months of Covid and people are still not persuaded to change their behaviour, they are probably a group that are in denial for their own reasons and it may be very hard to modify their behaviour. It'll be for the silent and sensible majority to take the lead," he said.

"If you can work from home, I don't know why employers shouldn't encourage it, and I'd have no prob[lem] if a particular organisation said they'd like you to wear a face covering in their establishment. We should respect that and they should have the right to turn you away," he added.

[Admiral Yi]

Isn't the phrase just something useful to create an 'enemy' out of the opposition as well as highlight they've little real support? Seems appropriate for those Trumpland supporters.

I think Nixon coined the expression to point out that most Americans supported Vietnam (I'm not really sure if this is true but I think it is) and that they weren't very noisy about it.

That's the opposite of what Trumptards are.

[garbon]

Isn't the phrase just something useful to create an 'enemy' out of the opposition as well as highlight they've little real support? Seems appropriate for those Trumpland supporters.

I think Nixon coined the expression to point out that most Americans supported Vietnam (I'm not really sure if this is true but I think it is) and that they weren't very noisy about it.

That's the opposite of what Trumptards are.

That's one interpretation - at least the most surface level one.

Also, are you feigning surprise that people might have changed how they used a term after 50 years?

[DGuller]

I think silent majority is a thing, just like fake news is a thing.  Both these phrases, along with many others, are just misused by the right wing.

[garbon]

I think silent majority is a thing, just like fake news is a thing.  Both these phrases, along with many others, are just misused by the right wing.

It does seem to be convenient to claim one is speaking for the majority who are not making their wishes known.

[Admiral Yi]

That's one interpretation - at least the most surface level one.

Also, are you feigning surprise that people might have changed how they used a term after 50 years?

I'm not feigning surprise at anything. 

[Syt]

A selection of news/commentary sites my sisters have shared articles from over the last two weeks.

https://www.dailywire.com/
https://www.theblaze.com/
https://townhall.com/
https://www.bizpacreview.com/
https://clarion.causeaction.com/
https://djhjmedia.com/

[DGuller]

I think silent majority is a thing, just like fake news is a thing.  Both these phrases, along with many others, are just misused by the right wing.

It does seem to be convenient to claim one is speaking for the majority who are not making their wishes known.

The more useful a concept is, the more convenient it is to hijack it.  What's the point of hijacking something useless? 

Silent majorities are a thing in politics, and many have grossly misstepped because they failed to realize the existence of one.  Sometimes the outspoken minority gets into an echo chamber and forgets about the outside world, sometimes the silent majority is encouraged to self-censor, and sometimes the silent majority is simply apathetic but still prone to think in certain ways.  In all the cases, they're still a political force, and they still speak through a ballot box.  Liberals in particular tend to grossly overestimate the level of support for their various culture war issues within the society, and that often ends badly for them and their allies.

[garbon]

The more useful a concept is, the more convenient it is to hijack it.  What's the point of hijacking something useless?

I'm not sure that utility for hijacked purposes is at all correlated with utility under the original meaning.  Look at something like 'critical race theory'. Not something with a great amount of value or cachet outside a very narrow population that now has had more ink spilled on it regarding its hijacked purposs. 

Silent majorities are a thing in politics, and many have grossly misstepped because they failed to realize the existence of one.  Sometimes the outspoken minority gets into an echo chamber and forgets about the outside world, sometimes the silent majority is encouraged to self-censor, and sometimes the silent majority is simply apathetic but still prone to think in certain ways.  In all the cases, they're still a political force, and they still speak through a ballot box.  Liberals in particular tend to grossly overestimate the level of support for their various culture war issues within the society, and that often ends badly for them and their allies.

I would agree with this definition from M-W, "the largest part of a country's population that consists of people who are not actively involved in politics and do not express their political opinions publicly" but I also struggle to feel that Nixon was using/re-coining the term with such a neutral meaning.

In any event, unless something detectable via polling or intentionally involving people not engaging in group think, it feels like a concept that is hard to have tangible benefits by virtue of not being able to detect it. Whereas immediately able to be used as a cudgel to say that the opposition is out of touch with whatever policy you dislike.