BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  NOV 14

“And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support.”    — President Richard Nixon, November 9, 1969

‘Silent majority’ is a term used to describe people who do not speak out, do not make themselves known and whose opinions are overshadowed by those who do. President Richard Nixon coined the phrase in defense of his Vietnam policies and generated favorable ratings above 70 percent.

And, today, it turns out there is a silent majority in this country and it, they, just elected the next President.

A good many of those locked inside the Washington beltway or high up in Rockefeller Center or in Hollywood or in any number of college faculty lounges did not get or did not want to acknowledge the silent majority, so to them Trump’s election was a shocker. The loudest voices of mainstream media, pollsters, pundits, American liberalism, and a community of ‘establishment’ Republicans, instead produced, directed, and sold a narrative that Trump was unfit for office, a clown, a charlatan, a liar and a cheat, homophobic, xenophobic, racist, and sexist, and also really uncouth. Not since Andrew Jackson has a candidates’ wife been dragged through as much mud. It would naturally follow then, that the American electorate would recognize all of this and make the right decision. When the end came, though, we all realized there was no right decision; there were only choices, all bad.

I didn’t buy into the narrative, although Trump made that very difficult at times, but I didn’t buy into Trump, either, or Clinton.

So how do you explain it? In hindsight, which is usually better informed, there were probably four significant dynamics among lesser ones that determined the outcome: (1) change; (2) the human condition and class distinctions; (3) Hillary Clinton; and (4) the media.

Change

This was what is popularly called a “change election.”  The degree of change demanded across American was vastly underestimated. Somewhere between 60-70 percent of the American people have said repeatedly over several years that the country is headed in the wrong direction. Majorities have said the economy is weak, crime is a crisis, and the constant threat of international terrorism weighs heavily on their mind. Americans have declining faith and trust in the institutions on which they depend, especially government and the media, but others are declining as well: organized religion, business, unions, public and private education, marriage, and civic responsibility.

Americans wanted change and to those who wanted little else, Trump was the better of the two options. Some among black leaders like to think it was because President Barack Obama was black, and feminists would like you to believe it was because Clinton was a woman. The seeds of change began growing before Obama was elected and millennial voters effectively dismissed the sexist charge, telling media the election of a woman to the presidency was inevitable and not the primary reason to choose a president.

The Human Condition and Class Distinction

The most significant impact on the outcome cannot be quantified. It was missed by the pollsters, misrepresented by the press, and erroneously vilified by the left.

Trump’s 60 million supporters were not irredeemable and deplorable human beings. They were a resilient and mostly silent majority of voters who will fight back when unfairly vilified, or when ignored by those who supposedly represent them, or left out dangling from their own culture and society.

They draw heavily on the strength of their allegiance to family, faith, community, flag, their eternal optimism and willingness to put their faith and trust in one politician after another, despite what seems to be a cycle of perpetual disappointment. They live in every nook and cranny of every state in the country—it isn’t a Midwest thing, or a southern thing, or a rural thing. Most Trump voters work hard and make mistakes, but find ways to survive. They like straight talk, as one writer noted, and brick and mortar success.

Mary Ann Best is a successful professional, a managing partner in a wealth management firm, no less, who is never far from her roots in working middle-class America: “I do not like Trump,” she said after the election. “I am not embarrassed that he was elected. He and his campaign tapped into anxiety in the country and they seemed to understand it. And while I do think there are two Americas, I don’t think one is better or worse than the other. The elites—well-educated and prosperous Americans—had better remember their roots. I came from that other America. My family was not wealthy. My parents were not able to go to college, but they worked hard and sent me and my two brothers to school. Instead of having heat in the home, while we were in college, they paid for us to go. And they did it with a loving and generous heart expecting nothing in return. I cannot discount how my parents and people like them feel about the state of affairs today. Their opinions do matter. They’ve made this country “great.” So some of them see something in Trump that gives them hope. My father is not deplorable. He worked full time until the age of 85 running a small business. He served in the Marines in Korea. He has been a loyal husband and father.

“I hope those of us in the bubble will now give the other America the respect it deserves.”

Some in the media bubble are belatedly rushing to small town diners in Ohio and Iowa looking for the real Trump loyalists. During the campaign they searched under rocks for creatures who would reinforce that part of the Trump narrative that he was the surreptitious stalking horse of neo-Nazis and white supremacy. After the election, another shock: they found factory workers looking for jobs, older men and women giving up on retirement, coal miners facing poverty, people fearful of rising health care costs, and young people leaving run-down school systems without an education.

The exit polling tells an interesting story that marries both the change voters sought and the class warfare they endured. Trump got the high-school grads as predicted, but he also got a majority of those with some college education and nearly half of those with a college education. He did well with white voters and badly with black voters, although he got more black votes than John McCain or Mitt Romney. He got 29 percent of the Hispanic vote, better than expected. The media seldom does the Hispanic community the service of distinguishing between immigrants from Mexico and those from Honduras, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and dozens of other Latino countries. He got 42 percent of the female vote, and a majority of those over 45 and 53 percent of married people. He got the vast majority of those who said they were not better off today and feared for the future of their children, some 63 percent. He won the votes of millions of people who were so on edge, they overlooked his pomposity, outrageous behavior and frequent tongue lashings.

Hillary Clinton

More than 50 percent of those who voted for Donald Trump told pollsters they did so because they didn’t like his opponent. Former Secretary Clinton is the poster child of the aggregation of political and personal negatives. She had more baggage than an ocean cruise liner, too much history, too many inconsistencies, and far too many incidents that raised too many questions about her veracity and ethical core.

Trust in her required a constant suspension of disbelief. Her greatest asset turned out to be Donald Trump, but even that pot of gold couldn’t be taken to the bank. She ignored the famous line attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “when you adversary is making a mistake, don’t interrupt him.” Clinton couldn’t leave well enough alone and stayed on the attack without clearly defining herself and what she would do for the country.

The repeated exposure of her own elitism culminating with declaring 30 million Americans as deplorable, sealed her fate. It seemed as though the closer it got to election day, the Trump and Clinton negatives became equally balanced and less distinguishable, making it easier for the uneasy to move from one camp to another, including to those of the independent candidates.

The Media

Another significant influence on the election, worthy of more attention, was the media, still very much in denial of the destructive force they became in American politics and public discourse.

“If I have a mea culpa for journalists and journalism, it’s that we ‘ve got to do a much better job of being on the road, out in the country, talking to different kinds of people than the people we talk to—especially if you happen to be a New York-based news organization—and remind ourselves that New York is not the real world.”

Quotation attributed to Dean Bacquet, executive editor, New York Times.

Next: The Media

Editor’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.