A New "Silent Majority"?

Remember the 1960s? I don't. I was too young. I was negative eight when they ended. But even growing up a decade later, it was still hard to not feel like you remember them.

The 1960s, we're told, were a golden age of courageous idealism. The hippies broke away from the staid, stifling 1950s and bravely stood up for a new world order that passionately stood for taking lots of drugs and having lots of sex. Which was revolutionary, because young people had never wanted to do those things before.

I'm being unfairly snotty here, because, growing up as part of Generation X, we constantly got an earful about how great the 1960s were. Baby boomers, it turns out, tend to be a little full of themselves.

But even if you push aside the hype and look at them objectively, the movements of the late 1960s were pretty inspiring. You had civil rights, women's rights, the peace movement -- all things that made our world a much better place. And at the time, it all was really shockingly, vibrantly new. Even as I chafe at baby boomers' self-congratulation, I do often wish I could have seen it all firsthand.

One interesting wrinkle in it all, though, was that the majority of Americans weren't going along with it. Sure, they participated in the 1960s as far as wearing the terrible clothes and redecorating their houses in pea-green and poo-brown, but in the end, they voted for Nixon. In 1968, probably the apex of all the exciting, revolutionary change, Richard Nixon won 301 electoral votes, to Hubert Humphrey's 191.

Oh, and there was a third candidate, George Wallace, who won 46 electoral votes stumping for the Racist Asshole party (aka the American Independent party). George Wallace's entire platform was "black people are scary," so I think we can safely count his electoral votes in with those who were not terribly on board in the great social changes of the time.

At the time, it was known as the "silent majority." The hippies and revolutionaries were getting all the press, but the majority of Americans were still boring types who just wanted to go to work and push aside all the ruckus.

I wonder if this latest presidential election exposed a new silent majority, except a good one this time. I follow politics pretty closely, and as a dyed-in-the-wool, pants-wetting liberal, following politics felt a little masochistic before the 2012 election. You had George W. Bush, and then a brief moment of hope when Obama was elected -- which then came crashing down with the ascendance of the Tea Party. Watching old morons in tri-corner hats waving signs like "Get the Government Out of My Medicare," it was hard not to wonder if America was just too dumb to survive.

But then the 2012 election went much better than I could have possibly hoped. Obama won convincingly. Democrats gained in both the House and the Senate.

And perhaps most tellingly, ballot measures about gay marriage and marijuana came down on our side. After years of state constitutional amendments against gay marriage passing easily, now we seem to have gone over a tipping point, as the nation has suddenly realized that there's no good reason it shouldn't be legal. And I just saw a poll showing that majority of Americans are in favor of legalizing marijuana. Both of these are things I never thought would turn so quickly.

All this has apparently shocked the Republicans too. They're now in disarray and scrambling for a new approach. Most of what they've come up with so far has been basically "OK, we'll shovel the same crap, but this time, let's have a younger, darker-skinned person do the shoveling." In other words, they got nothing.

Is it possible that all the while there was a silent majority of liberals out there? In the 1960s, the liberals were the most vocal, but before 2012, you could argue, the conservatives were. The conservatives were making waves through Fox News and Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck and all the rest. Meanwhile, young people watched "The Daily Show," had gay friends, smoked marijuana without hurting anyone, and perhaps didn't get too involved in politics -- but when it came time to vote, they did, in larger numbers than anyone predicted.

I hate to get triumphant, though, because I have this gnawing fear that the other shoe will drop soon. Maybe in 2014, all the gun control and gay marriage and marijuana will all prove a step too far, and we'll lose the majority in the Senate. These things always seem to work like a pendulum, where one election's winners get a little too big for their britches and then the other side gets the passion and takes the power back.

But I also take some solace in the economy. Realistically, the government has a lot less effect on the economy than we tend to believe. The government may set the rules of the game, but the players, us private citizens, are the people who really cause the economy to win or lose.

Regardless, though, when it comes to the economy, Americans have this weird relationship with government where we want it out of our lives but also want it to solve all our problems. It's always "Get the government out of the way" when things are fine and then "Why isn't the government doing something?" as soon as things turn bad. We treat the government like a 14-year-old girl treats her mother -- as a terrible pest who needs to leave her alone and then, when she needs help, as a savior who should swoop in and know exactly how to rescue her.

As a result, the economy ends up having the greatest influence on people's perceptions of the government. And right now, the economy is stable enough so that it's out of the headlines. That means good things for the party in power.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. 2008 might have been a false start for a new liberal majority, but 2012 is starting to feel like the real thing. Am I jinxing it by saying this? Oh, God I hope not. Oh please please please let me get what I want ... Lord knows it would be the first time.