Silent Majority

[[File:Cimetiere americain Colleville-sur-Mer.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Part of the silent majority]]
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{{cquote|"That's how they win... by making you think you're alone."|||[[Star Wars]]: The rise of Skywalker}}

First invoked in politics by [[Richard Nixon]],<ref>http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/richard-m-nixon/videos/nixon-addresses-silent-majority</ref> the '''Silent Majority''' is a hypothetical mass of citizens that approve of the speaker's position, but have not publicly expressed this in any tangible way. It is the off-line equivalent of "The lurkers support me in email."

It is also the name of a song by the band True Sounds of Liberty (TSOL).<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgZPm3hx20c TSOL - Abolish Government \ Silent Majority] ''YouTube''.</ref>

==Use by conservative wingnuts==
The "silent majority" is most often invoked by [[conservative]] politicians who argue that [[Jesusland|real Americans]] are conservative, but neither as politically active nor as loud as their liberal counterparts. Nixon initially employed it in reference to the [[Vietnam War]]: since most Americans weren't actively protesting the war, Nixon's reasoning went, it followed that they supported his policies. In contrast, those criticizing the war were a "vocal minority" whose views received disproportionate attention.

This logic is, to say the least, highly flawed, since it assumes facts not in evidence. By definition, the opinions of a "silent majority" are difficult to gauge since they do not engage in politicking outside of an election year. Assuming that all supporters of a position are silent, and all those who oppose it are vocal, is extremely dubious reasoning. Nixon's own domestic advisor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, cautioned him that "the silent majority is silent because it has nothing to say."<ref>https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/releases/jun09/111370_Moynihan.pdf</ref>

With the rise of right-wing media and activist groups over the past few decades, the term has become even more of an oxymoron, which hasn't stopped [[Republicans]] from using it. Most recently, [[Donald Trump]] and his supporters have branded themselves a silent majority,<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/us/politics/donald-trump-defiantly-rallies-a-new-silent-majority-in-a-visit-to-arizona.html</ref> even though most of them are about as silent as an airhorn operated by a drunk frat boy and Trump has never had a majority of support of Americans.

[[Ironically]], the phrase was originally a [[euphemism]] for [[dead]] people, as in "He joined the silent majority".<ref>https://books.google.com/books?id=EcZZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA302&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Greenough, James Bradstreet; George Lyman Kittredge (1920)</ref> So when a politician says the silent majority will [[Voter fraud|support them on election day]]…

==The Horseshoe lands in China==
[[Horseshoe theory|Interestingly]], the Chinese government and the [[tankies]] used this [[Logical fallacy|fallacious]] argument as a [[propaganda]] tool during the {{wpl|2019–2020 Hong Kong protests}}, trying to make it look like the majority of Hong Kong residents supported China and opposed the protests, but supposedly were unable to do so due to fear of retribution from protesters.<ref>https://www.newstatesman.com/world/asia/2019/11/day-hong-kong-s-true-silent-majority-spoke</ref><ref>https://hongkongfp.com/2019/07/16/extremist-mobs-chinas-propaganda-machine-tries-control-message-hong-kong-protests/</ref> During the {{wpl|2019 Hong Kong local elections||,}} however, the pro-democracy [[Political parties of Hong Kong|parties]] won in an absolute fucking landslide. Now, the CCP has to either resort to [[Doublethink]] or whine about "muh violence" or that the Hongkongers are "brainwashed" by British colonialism.<ref>https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3039475/how-could-most-hong-kong-vote-support-rioting-and-violence</ref>

==See also==
*[[Burden of proof]]
*[[Argumentum ad populum]]
*[[Appeal to authority]]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}
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[[Category:Fallacious arguments]]
[[Category:Appeals to authority]]
[[Category:Conservative deceit]]

Categories: Fallacious arguments, Appeals to authority, Conservative deceit