Bill Carmichael: The silent majority finally gets its say

IN the battle of the slogans '“ as in the US Presidential race itself '“ Donald Trump won hands down.
Donald Trump's election has provoked a backlash as demonstrators take to the streets.Donald Trump's election has provoked a backlash as demonstrators take to the streets.
Donald Trump's election has provoked a backlash as demonstrators take to the streets.

His snappy catchphrase “Make America Great Again” was always more powerful than the watered milk of Hillary Clinton’s insipid “Stronger Together”.

But it was another poster often seen at Trump’s rallies that caught my eye and which I think may help explain the biggest political upset in living memory.

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The poster, carried by hundreds of ordinary Americans, simply read “The Silent Majority Stands with Trump”.

This notion aroused derision on the left. Oh yeah, they said, you mean the stupid inbreds, the toothless rednecks, the cousin-marrying dumb hicks, the racists, the bigots etc. The insults came thick and fast. And there in a nutshell you have an explanation of this remarkable election result – and the reason why the liberal left establishment is in desperate retreat throughout the West.

Because, as was clearly demonstrated on election night this week and during the UK’s Brexit vote in the summer, the silent majority does in fact exist and in the US they delivered a stunning, against-the-odds victory for Donald Trump.

Regular readers of this column will know I am no fan of Trump (or Clinton for that matter), but to portray all those attending his mega-rallies as frothing Nazis is as incorrect as it is insulting. These are ordinary working class Americans who feel that establishment politicians no longer represent their views.

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I know from my own contacts in the US that many were reluctant Trump supporters, and many hold views on racial and sexual equality and poverty elimination that would be considered progressive.

Some hold what might be called more traditional views on marriage, abortion and control of the borders – but far from being somehow extreme, these opinions were considered perfectly mainstream less than a decade ago.

But over recent years the left and their obedient lackeys in the mainstream press have decried such people as “bigots” and “racists” with such tedious regularity that those once powerful words have been drained of meaning.

The idea has grown that there are certain views that should not be allowed to be expressed. Take, for example, the simple fact – backed up by a wealth of data – that black people in the US are far more likely to be shot by black criminals than they are by the police. If black lives really matter, activists should be protesting against the criminal gangs in Chicago and Detroit, not against the police. But to say such things is decried as “hate speech” and – inevitably – “racist”. The facts are racist, the statistics are racist, mathematics itself is racist!

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So ordinary, sensible people don’t express such truths for fear of the inevitable unhinged response from the unsleeping mob of twittering idiots. They might have been silenced, but they haven’t changed their minds. And you don’t change people’s minds by shouting at them and calling them stupid.

So this vast army of voters has simply gone underground. They don’t like politicians – and with dodgy characters such as Hillary Clinton around who can blame them.

They don’t trust the Press, and given the naked partisanship in favour of the establishment candidate shown by the US mainstream media, this is hardly a surprise. And they are certainly not going to honestly reveal to pollsters how they are going to vote. That’s why the normally reliable US opinion polls were miles out this year, hugely underestimating Trump’s hidden support.

The parallels with Brexit are striking. Here, the pollsters told us Remain would prevail, but a silent majority delivered an emphatic win for Leave. And those of us who voted to rescue our country from a corrupt, anti-democratic clique in Brussels were decried as knuckle-dragging xenophobes and – inevitably – racists.

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The hysterical reaction of the losers is also strikingly similar – such lip trembling, foot stomping sulks would embarrass a hormonal 13-year-old.

The sight of millionaire actors weeping into their prosecco over Trump’s victory is certainly funnier than any ‘comedies’ coming out of Hollywood in recent years.

Hilariously, some losers have even filmed themselves having deranged screaming fits and posted it on social media – because, you know, the US election is really ALL ABOUT ME!

Project Whinge has gone truly global! Half the world is wailing uncontrollably and the other half is laughing at them. I am one of the latter.