Silent Majority 2020
My name is Sammy Silent. This is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.
On March 20, 2020 Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti ordered all “non-essential” businesses in Los Angeles to shut down. On March 24 Garcetti branded all such businesses who “chose” not to comply as “selfish and irresponsible.” Prior to that on March 16 Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak imposed the same shut down order on non-essential businesses.
I own non-essential businesses in Nevada and Los Angeles. I did not comply with Governor Sisolak or Mayor Garcetti directives for several reasons.Nor did I so much as consider them. Seeing how Mayor Garcetti branded me as selfish, let us lead with that as to why.
Ever heard the term owning a business as “your baby?” That’s how I feel about mine. They haven’t made me rich, but they afforded me a comfortable living for 10 years. If being a homeowner is the American Dream, I guess you can say I’m living the dream. So, one can say I was ordered to shut down my businesses, but that isn’t how I heard it. I was ordered to kill my baby.That’s what I heard. Had I fallen in line; my business had 0% chance of ever opening again. My income gone. House gone. Car gone. Credit gone. Everything, gone with the wind.
A second reason I refused to close is love. I love many of my employees. Some would have been homeless with children. If all this sounds melodramatic and extreme, ask yourself how melodramatic and extreme it is to order a middle-aged man to shut down his business of 10 years and let everything he’s worked for go. Does that strike you as melodramatic and extreme?
On November 3, 1969 President Nixon popularized the term “Silent Majority.” The phrase has been used by other Presidents and cultures, but it was really Richard Nixon who put it on the map. Its reference was to a group of Middle Americans being overshadowed in the media by a far more vocal but much smaller minority.
My name is Sammy Silent. I am a member of the Silent Majority of 2020. We are not just business owners and we are not just Middle America. We are Americans of all stripes coast-to-coast and we are BY FAR the largest Silent Majority in the history of this great Republic. We are young, old, black, white, gay, straight, you name it. We are it and we number in the millions. We work, we provide for our children and we want our life back.
The Silent Majority is not saying this pandemic isn’t serious and in need of a solution. The problem here is every single last one of you in the media doing all the talking and ordering hasn’t taken $1 in a pay cut. Not a single dollar. Not one, not one of you! You ask for wayout-of-this-world far too much and give nothing in return. By “nothing,” we mean you don’t give up everything you have. And that’s what you expect from the Silent Majority. To give up everything.
I am Sammy Silent and a member of the 2020 Silent Majority. I’m still in business and because of the Silent Majority I’ll remain in business for years to come. We don’t need to mobilize or such nonsense. There are millions of us coast-to-coast. Ready to work; ready to take our life back. Some of us will contract the virus and die along the way. Honor us. Honor us for the true soldiers that we are. Those who gave their life trying to protect the Republic for which it was founded. Freedom. The land of opportunity. Positively the greatest country this world has or will ever see. Worth living for. Worth dying while working for. Worth it all. Worth more.
