In 1969, President Nixon gave a speech referring to the “Silent Majority”. He was speaking of average Americans who never formed a special interest group to promote their desires or political views. This group was ignored for years and they remained silent.
Then, in 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected as 40th President of the United States. In the ensuing four years he spoke of a “New Morning Again in America”. The result was a stirring of the people that believed in America and it awakened the sleeping Silent Majority.
Reagan was re-elected in a landslide unequaled, before or since, in American History. He won 49 of 50 states in the election and received 525 of the 538 Electoral votes. The largest number ever won by a Presidential candidate.
Even as he gave his farewell speech to the nation in 1989, his positive view and optimism of America's future was evident when he spoke of the “Shining City on a Hill”:
“In my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”
Before concluding by saying “goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America” Reagan offered this advice:“lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven’t been teaching you what it means to be an American, let ’em know and nail ’em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.”
Will the “Silent Majority” wake up and rise once again to change the course of American History? Will they wake up from decades of silence and speak out with their votes? Will they save America?
Noel Ison
