Title : I'm hearing about the "exhausted majority." Is that something different from the old "silent majority"?
link : I'm hearing about the "exhausted majority." Is that something different from the old "silent majority"?
I'm hearing about the "exhausted majority." Is that something different from the old "silent majority"?
A lot of people — including me, here, yesterday — are linking to the Atlantic article, "Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture" by Yascha Mounk.I usually give the subtitle along with the title, but this article has a distractingly incomprehensible subtitle: "Youth isn’t a good proxy for support of political correctness, and race isn’t either." I mean, I can comprehend it now that I've read the article, but unlike most subtitles, it doesn't help you see what you're going to get by reading it. The use of the word "proxy" is, if not entirely wrong, entirely confusing. The idea is supposed to be that you're wrong if you assume that the older and whiter a person is there more likely they are to think "political correctness" is a problem. It turns out that all groups — except "progressive activists" — say they think "political correctness" is a problem. And the majorities are overwhelming.
The article draws from a new report, "Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,” which sorts Americans into various political "tribes." This depiction is a good quick summary:
Look at how many people are collected under the label "exhausted"! Obviously, we're a huge majority, and it's nice to see all the detail within the majority, but why are we all labeled "exhausted"? And why are "traditional liberals" said to be exhausted when "traditional conservatives" are not? The Atlantic article says that the views of the "traditional" and the "devoted" conservatives "are far outside the American mainstream." I guess the "traditional liberals," unlike the "traditional conservatives," don't belong in the "wings," and therefore get grouped with the "majority." But why is that entire diverse group, the majority, deemed "exhausted."
To go to the underlying report:
In talking to everyday Americans, we have found a large segment of the population whose voices are rarely heard above the shouts of the partisan tribes. These are people who believe that Americans have more in common than that which divides them. While they differ on important issues, they feel exhausted by the division in the United States. They believe that compromise is necessary in politics, as in other parts of life, and want to see the country come together and solve its problems.Is this group really tired or just hard to hear "above the shouts of the partisan tribes"? I suspect that the authors are using the term "exhausted majority" because they don't want to say "silent majority."
Here's the Wikipedia article for "Silent Majority":
The silent majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly. The term was popularized by U.S. President Richard Nixon in a November 3, 1969, speech in which he said, "And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support." .... Nixon along with many others saw this group of Middle Americans as being overshadowed in the media by the more vocal minority....Of course, that sounds like Trump, and, indeed, Trump used the term during his presidential campaign: "The silent majority is back, and we’re going to take our country back."
In the months leading up to Nixon's 1969 speech, his vice-president Spiro T. Agnew said on May 9, "It is time for America's silent majority to stand up for its rights, and let us remember the American majority includes every minority. America's silent majority is bewildered by irrational protest..." Soon thereafter, journalist Theodore H. White analyzed the previous year's elections, writing "Never have America's leading cultural media, its university thinkers, its influence makers been more intrigued by experiment and change; but in no election have the mute masses more completely separated themselves from such leadership and thinking. Mr. Nixon's problem is to interpret what the silent people think, and govern the country against the grain of what its more important thinkers think."...
Nixon's silent majority referred mainly to the older generation (those World War II veterans in all parts of the U.S.) but it also described many young people in the Midwest, West and in the South, many of whom eventually served in Vietnam. The Silent Majority was mostly populated by blue collar white people who did not take an active part in politics; suburban, exurban and rural middle class voters. They did, in some cases, support the conservative policies of many politicians. Others were not particularly conservative politically, but resented what they saw as disrespect for American institutions....
The silent majority theme has been a contentious issue amongst journalists since Nixon used the phrase. Some thought Nixon used it as part of the Southern strategy; others claim it was Nixon's way of dismissing the obvious protests going on around the country, and Nixon's attempt to get other Americans not to listen to the protests. Whatever the rationale, Nixon won a landslide victory in 1972, taking 49 of 50 states, vindicating his "silent majority"....
That makes the term poison to some people. It may seem better to label 2/3 of Americans as "exhausted" than to give us the dignity and power of "The Silent Majority."
Thus Article I'm hearing about the "exhausted majority." Is that something different from the old "silent majority"?
That's an article I'm hearing about the "exhausted majority." Is that something different from the old "silent majority"? This time, hopefully can give benefits to all of you. well, see you in posting other articles.
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