The “silent majority” and counteracting network effects in politics
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-sarkozy-idUSKBN1380C6
The linked article, “Sarkozy courts ‘silent majority’ in French presidential race,” discusses Nicolas Sarkozy, a former president of France who lost reelection to the current incumbent but is eyeing a second term in next year’s election. Sarkozy, like Trump, is a (right-wing) conservative and is attracting negative media coverage due to some extreme positions of his, such as a national burkini ban. He has also spoken in racist undertones, telling a group of migrants obtaining citizenship, “your ancestors are the Gauls” – a phrase that has historically been used in French classrooms to dismiss other cultures’ contributions to France – along with the following: “If you want to become French, you speak French, you live like the French and you don’t try and change a way of life that has been ours for so many years.” While these comments have been denounced by others in France, Sarkozy and his supporters claim that “the silent majority” agree with them. “The silent majority” is a phrase commonly associated (in the U.S. at least) to Richard Nixon, who claimed that most Americans supported involvement in Vietnam, despite large and visible protests against it. Most recently in American politics, Donald Trump used the phrase to refer to “forgotten Americans” who were not picked up by polls but would (and did) turn out to vote for him.
The concept of the “silent majority” is a deliberate attempt at counteracting network effects. If Trump supporters looked at the polls and thought their candidate would lose, they may not have turned out and voted in sufficient quantity to get him elected. But, Trump successfully diminished the network effect on supporter turnout from polling by convincing his supporters to view them as rigged and not truly representative of how Americans felt, even claiming, in one interview, that poll participants were claiming they supported Clinton, but in reality were Trump supporters and just afraid of saying so. On another occasion, he said the same of politicians – that they said nasty things about him in public, but voiced their support in private. This is essentially an attempt to call out – legitimately or not – an instance of pluralistic ignorance, with the hope of staving off negative network effects.
This is being deployed now by Sarkozy. He is making the argument that despite negative coverage and denunciations from other party leaders (he is facing a primary later this month), plenty of people agree with and support him. So, if you support Sarkozy, you shouldn’t be discouraged from voting for him. Sarkozy is essentially hoping to lower the network benefit/detriment – f(z) as we referred to it in lecture. Lowering this by convincing supporters to care less about the opinions of others would benefit a candidate, like Sarkozy, facing public backlash and negative coverage.