In the aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential Election, as I watch these protests across the country against the election of Trump.
I can’t deny the passions and emotions that have driven these protests. A lot of people are upset, and justifiably so. But, having read a lot recently about the rise of the hard right conservatives, I worry that the protests will backfire.
Alas, the protests that swept across the country in 1968, in the run up to that year’s presidential election, the public sentiment against the war was running high, as the deployments, and casualties were rising rapidly.
Alas, not the entire country was against the war, there was a significant portion of the population who “went to work, didn’t have beards, didn’t smoke dope” and were mad as hell at the hippies who were disrespecting the flag and the nation.
Nixon coined the term “Silent Majority” to describe these people, and played to them throughout the election, quite successfully I might add.
The far right conservatives capitalized on this, leading to the rise of Reagan from the ashes of Nixon’s flameout. And the rest is history.
That cohort still exists, and it clearly was key to Trump’s electoral win.
