The Silent Majority or The Moral Majority

Silent majority was a term coined by Nixion's CREEP (committee to re-elect the president--a very unfortunate choice of acronym, under the cirucmstances), and was really rather clever. They were in fact, likely not the majority--but the Democrats self-destructed. As William Manchester points out in The Glory and the Dream (a history of the U.S. from 1932 to 1972), when the working class stays home, the Republicans win, when they vote, the Democrats win. Please note that in pointing that out, i am not ignoring the sea change that Reagan's election brought about, i'm simply referring to 1972.

The Moral Majority was a hare-brained idea of the religious right to use the earlier expression to mobilize religious voters. It failed, however, as Robertson and Falwell so obviously do not represent the mainstream of devout christians, that its use aleinated more support than it attracted.

Neither moral nor a majority!