The Silent Majority

So far, my posts may seem to be slightly at odds with what I put in the header of this blog. If you read above, I mention what I call "the silent majority" in reference to the vast majority of Americans that I feel are being ignored due to their middle-of-the-road political views. My most recent post (before this one) specifically stated that a successful demolition of two-party system and its partisan politics would require all types of views, not just those of moderates. I argue that neither statement is wrong or at odds with the other. Indulge me:

The idea of the "silent majority" is that, over the years, the win/lose mentality of Americans has permeated politics. Even now, those fed up with President Bush's presidency are pushing for the Democrats to "win" the November elections. So what? That's been the story for years, right? The problem is that to consistently "win" an election, each party must try to make themselves different from the other. The result has been the Republicans pushing their policies ever more to the right to pander to the ultra-conservatives and the Democrats pushing their policies to the left, pandering to the ultra-liberals. Each claims they are reaching out to their "core demographic" and perhaps they are right. The problem is, though, that no one is reaching out to the core demographic in America - the Moderates (centrists, middle-of-the-roaders, call us what you will...). That the Moderates are never truly represented is part of the reason I refer to them (us) as "the silent majority."

The other reason for calling Moderates "The Silent Majority" is that that is generally what we are - silent. Not only are our views ignored but most of the time, Moderates don't bother to push their views. We either don't feel strongly about them or more likely, don't feel it's worth our time because we "know" we'll be ignored. The irony is, of course, if moderates voiced their opinion regularly, as a majority, we could not be ignored. I can't say for certain that moderates are the majority of Americans, but based on normal statistical distributions and a sampling of the views of my colleagues and friends, I think I can be safe in that assumption. There is also the consideration of the vast majority of Americans who do not vote. While some of that may be due to laziness, I can be relatively sure that the disaffected voters don't vote because they do not feel their voice is being represented by either major party candidate.

So why must the America Part include all Americans? To abolish partisan politics for good. Without the support of everyone, this cannot happen. Besides, if I what I said above is right, moderates and our varied views would rule the political landscape.