Book-banning wingnuts are a tiny, vocal minority

The moral majority is neither.

“The Moral Majority” is a stupendous marketing gimmick: it allowed a small minority of vicious, paranoid, hateful creeps to brand themselves as a “silent majority” who were all around us, afraid to speak their minds.

The impact of this wasn’t merely in convincing politicians and the press that the views of these unhinged, fringe conspiratorialists should be taken seriously — just as important is the zap it put on the heads of their enemies, the people who wanted to love whom they loved, take care of one another, and let folks be themselves.

For these people, the Moral Majority created the impression that they themselves were the minority. These people were convinced that their broadly shared, commonsense values — entiirely compatible with the Christian gospels, as it happens — made them outliers.

This is such a useful move for the far right that they’ve pulled it over and over again. Take the climate emergency: the looming peril it presents to all of us is so manifest that the vast majority of Americans support taking immediate, decisive action to address it. However, Americans think they’re all alone in this, underestimating popular support for climate action by 50%: