From last thread:

re: #650 Targetpractice

re: #642 Hecuba’s daughter

The original definition of “silent majority” was a euphemism for the dead.

The more famous (and likely more relevant) usage of it was the invocation of the term by then-Pres Nixon in ‘69 when he was confident that the majority of Americans secretly supported the Vietnam War and were not supporting the increasingly outraged protests.

For those who weren’t around and may have missed that page in their history books, Nixon ultimately found out that no such “majority” existed.

I’m gonna partially disagree: while Nixon’s use of the phrase was likely just Nixonian bullshit: said “majority” did reelect him in 1972 - in a landslide. A landslide due mainly to the fact that the Democrats ran on what was, by 1972, very much Yesterday’s Issue: the Vietnam War, which had mostly wound down by Election Day.