You need an actual majority in order for there to be a silent majority. The correct phrase would be "vocal minority, concentrated in a few specific geographic areas engineered to have more power over the electoral process" which is nearly the opposite of a silent majority.
> vocal minority, concentrated in a few specific geographic areas engineered to have more power over the electoral process
Speaking as someone who identifies as radical leftist: I disagree with this. That the "center of America" (same as for rural areas in Germany, which also heavily tend to vote conservative/right) has been vastly ignored by the left is a fact. While gerrymandering is certainly a problem on state-level elections, it is not so much a problem on US-wide elections and certainly the state borders have not been "gerrymandered" to result in the voting power differences that in turn resulted in Trump becoming president.
The left parties, not just in the US, but also especially in Germany have for long left their roots as parties of the workers and instead shifted their focus to what one may call "the urban elite". While in Germany with Mr. Schulz there is a hope that he may win back the votes of former core SPD or Left party voters, I am not sure if the Democrats will be able to do the same in the US.
Actually in fact the entire election scheme was developed in a compromise with the explicit idea being to give more rural, less populous states more power than their actual population would warrant, an agreed-upon gerrymandering by design. The power between urban/populous and rural/slave-owning states was carefully constructed, they compromised at counting slave votes 3/5ths of a citizen vote, which could be cast by the slave owner for example. The US was created as a confederation of distinct states, all of them as equal partners, not a collection of people, and concessions had to be made to get all of them to sign on and present a united front against the British if there was any hope at a successful rebellion.
That was all well and reasonable when state power was large and federal power was relatively small, but now that the opposite is true and states barely matter with the federal government superseding and deciding nearly everything the premises for that compromise no longer hold.
But this will likely never change; the power given to the smaller states is enough that they can prevent any modification to the rules, and the rules radically favor keeping them in power, so there is no incentive for them to ever give it up besides some sense of doing the right thing even if it isn't politically advantageous which is a sentiment that sadly doesn't really exist anymore in American politics.
The reason for that is cities are becoming the core centers of production over time. As distributed production centers like factories become more and more automated, the social reactors of cities need to operate well for states to be successful.
That's no excuse for ignoring smaller towns but to be fair voters outside of cities have tilted hard toward Republican representation since the 80's. Should Democrats try to win them back? Yes, of course. Should they abandon their metropolitan base to do so? Depends on the party's goals. Should liberal policies be blamed for every shitty economic situation outside of cities? No, not when the representatives they vote for generally make life harder for them.
I also disagree when it comes to gerrymandering affecting state elections. Gerrymandered states are "brainwashed" by their representatives into voting for similar politicians. They assume everyone around them thinks a certain way because why else would Republicans (or Democrats) keep being elected? Obviously that party is better! They also implement voting restrictions, education policies, economic systems, etc. that benefit their parties. Lobbyists from industries that their parties support them in elections. The entire power infrastructure of that state is organized to promote the continued dominance of that party. It's a gross abuse of democracy.
> The reason for that is cities are becoming the core centers of production over time. As distributed production centers like factories become more and more automated, the social reactors of cities need to operate well for states to be successful.
While true, that does not help the hundreds of thousands of people left to rot in deteriorating cities like Detroit, Flint, or to stay in Germany, the Ruhrpott cities. They are the voting base of the right-wingers, and unless we left-oriented people don't offer anything except "oh, it is the way it is, move to the cities or be damned", that won't change. Not to mention that "move to the cities" is often impossible because rents are at an all-time high.
> Should Democrats try to win them back? Yes, of course. Should they abandon their metropolitan base to do so? Depends on the party's goals.
There's nothing contradicting between supporting the left-leaning metropolitan bases and the rural areas. Many people in the rural areas don't give a flying f..k about gay marriage, LGBT equality or whatever, they just want to be heard and have a perspective on life that's beyond social security - and the Democrats as well as German left parties have made the potentially fatal mistake to ignore this.
When entire campaigns revolve around said topics and have NOTHING to offer for those not in metropolitan areas, there is no surprise that people in rural areas tend to think "the damn lefties only care about gays and pot, but what do they offer to me personally?!". It would imho not require much to win back their votes - a couple visits to show "we did not forget you", support from the state-level party leadership for the local politicians and their worries (this is lacking so hard, it's painful - and it leads to people not engaging in parties at the local level, because a typical local politician has nothing to decide/change as a result), and that's enough to prevent that "we're abandoned" feeling.
The solution for rural areas is to decentralize production again. That means renewable energy all across the country, faster internet speeds, small farms, local commerce, etc. These all happen to be strongly opposed by the current iteration of the Republican party, and the Republican party dominates so these solutions aren't even considered.
Gay rights were a difficult fight over the last few decades. You can look at it now and say people don't give a flying fuck but the same was not true 20 years ago. 30-40 years ago it was womens' rights. 60 years ago it was black rights. Look at abortion today - probably one of the most significant drivers of Republican voters right now. That's not something Democrats will budge on (for many scientifically validated reasons) and it's not something Republicans will budge on (for primarily religious reasons). That becomes a sticking point that blocks other issues from moving forward. Another example is business regulation. Various small businesses feel constrained beyond what they think is necessary, but Democrats require consumer and environmental safety. It's very well possible that businesses are overburdened by unimportant regulations but Democrats think they're just complaining about not being able to poison the environment or rip people off, so they shut down.
Headliner Democrats visiting rural areas would help but I don't think that's the only requirement. We need to plow through the roadblocks before rural areas will see any improvement.
> That the "center of America" (same as for rural areas in Germany, which also heavily tend to vote conservative/right) has been vastly ignored by the left is a fact.
I disagree with this premise. Many of the signature policies of the "left" were specifically intended to address the issues facing "middle America" - the ACA/Obamacare was intended to address rising health care costs, Clinton was pushing a retraining program for workers in areas where jobs have migrated from, and both Sanders and Clinton were arguing for increasing access to tertiary education via free/discounted programs.
I also think it's interesting that these areas complain they are "abandoned" by the left while continuing to elect Republicans. Blaming the Federal government (ostensibly "left" despite the Republican controlled House and Senate for the last 6 years) for the failings of State politicians and Governors, who have at least as much impact in your daily life, is another example of how absurd politics has become. We need to break the partisan nature of politics and start electing people who are interested in building a city/county/State/country for ALL of their constituents via compromise.
> I also think it's interesting that these areas complain they are "abandoned" by the left while continuing to elect Republicans.
(disclaimer: the following may be inaccurate due to the fact that I'm a German and don't get reports on every activity of Clinton)
From what I've seen in news reports, Trump has made a habit during his campaign to appear not only in contested swing states but also in areas where many jobs have been lost - be it due to the closure of coal mines, huge factories or whatever - and promised people to "make them great again" and "make their voices being heard". Clinton however focused on swing states and the DNC shot down the Sanders campaign.
In Germany, it's the same - old miner towns or rural areas rarely get visits from campaigning politicians, except when there's a beer fest or a really huge factory opening. This is where that "we're abandoned" complaint comes from - it's not that local politicians abandon the population in these areas, it's that state/country politicians rarely turn up, and as a result the "abandoned" areas rarely get any media attention outside local newspapers (we don't really have the ultra-local TV stations like in the US). And if they do get mass media attention, it's mostly in the form of some TV team turning up and filming stuff like that abandoned houses get squatted by homeless people and the entire area gets dragged down by filth; not exactly what makes one proud of living in such areas. While Democrats and left-wings don't do anything, the right-wingers at least promise "we will help you", and that is - even if they don't have the slightest thought of keeping good on their promises - enough for the population to vote for them.
On a sidenote, that is what really scares me about Trump. As bad as it is, but he is the first politician in long times to publically show "I am doing, to the letter, exactly that what I promised in my campaign", and people will vote for him and his party AGAIN because of this, while ignoring that what he promises is backwards, false loads of dung.
Clinton did plenty of campaigning in impoverished areas - the difference is that she wasn't making some wild claim so it did not generate the same coverage. "Clinton gives speech in Detroit" doesn't have the same media impact as "Trump says he will knock the shit out of ISIS".
There are many reasons why Trump won and Clinton lost - the perception that the left has abandoned Trump supporters likely had some impact but the bigger story there is why there is that perception not that the DNC has abandoned Red states (Clinton loss has even been attributed to her campaign efforts in traditionally red states - http://www.npr.org/2016/10/18/498376750/is-hillary-clinton-r...).
The mistake of Clinton was to persist running for office. She knew that the Republicans would dominate the entire election with that stupid email server debate.
It didn't need any wild claims from Trump to dominate the media coverage, the email stuff was way more than enough that could be exploited to drown out her media presence. Any candidate with a bit more sensible advocates would have cancelled the run early, but Clinton decided to stick and hope for the best, instead of letting Sanders take the run and ride the waves of support among young people.
In American presidential elections the only majority that matters if of electoral college. The majority of heads does not matter, majority of head adjusted for privilege points does not matter, votes of global citizens do no matter. In that sense my use of the word "majority" is perfectly correct.
Why are you talking about privilege points? Who said anything about that? Why are you introducing things like privilege into this conversation? Perhaps you want to dodge the rest of the argument because you know you aren't correct and talk about your feelings about privilege instead, because feelings can't be wrong? I've seen the tactic before and nobody really falls for it outside of /r/the_donald. Certainly not on HN.
You don't have a majority of American citizens. You don't have a majority of people living in America. You don't have a majority of American voters. You don't have a majority of people who voted in the 2016 presidential election. You have a majority of electors in the electoral college, but they are the opposite of silent. Their votes are published online for the world to see. They make public protest votes. Their lack of silence is how we know who won the election. 'Silent majority' could not be more wrong as a description of what is going on here.
