The 2020 Election: The New Silent Majority

President Richard Nixon and his Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, surrounded by telegrams from people reacting to his “Silent Majority” speech, 1969 (Source: Nixon White House / Nixon Presidential Library; Public Domain).

Fifty years ago, on November 3, 1969, President Richard Nixon gave his famous “silent majority” speech, a televised address in which he asked Americans to support his plan to end the Vietnam War, what he would later in 1973 describe as “peace with honor.” “And so tonight,” Nixon said on the television that evening, in his oddly stilted cadence, glancing down at the papers in his hands, “to you, the great silent…