Many people want to conserve the only status quo that they know
Brad Littlejohn World Opinions
In 1969, amid widespread violent demonstrations against the Vietnam War and the alarming public displays of a new “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll” counterculture, Richard Nixon addressed himself to the “silent majority” of sensible, decent, conservative-minded American people. For the more than five decades since, conservatives have continued to appeal to what they felt sure was that silent majority, a median-voter demographic that didn’t like abortion, didn’t like same-sex marriage, and was ready to join them in opposing the “woke elites.”
Only it isn’t working anymore. In state after state since the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision in 2022, very vocal majorities have gone to the polls in defense of legal abortion. Even former President Donald Trump, who long boasted of his pro-life judicial appointments, effectively threw in the towel in his recent statement on abortion policy. What went wrong? Where did the “silent majority” go?
On the latest episode of Beyond the Polls, Henry Olsen talks to Patrick Ruffini about how sustainable a working class Republican Party really is and what to make of it as a global phenomenon.
