The Silent Majority is Back

Popularized by U.S. President Richard Nixon, the phrase “silent majority” has loomed large in American collective memory. It has now made a come back in the recent American presidential election campaign. Appeals to the “silent majority” were at the forefront of the Republican candidate’s rhetoric, and frequently wrapped up his campaign speeches. In an attempt to recreate a shared memory and generate political identification amongst his supporters Trump did not hesitate in reminding them that the phrase has a history. What this history was, and why it mattered again, remained a key part of the silence that was simultaneously invoked and kept to form and mobilize a new majority. “The silent majority is back,” Trump defiantly announced, “and we’re going to take our country back.” This paper takes recent events in the US as a pretext to explore larger questions about the silence of the demos and its meaning for representative democracy in an age of populist insurgency.