sentences:  In this usage it referred to those Americans who did not join in the large demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the time, who did not join in the counterculture, and who did not participate in public discourse.Nixon, along with many others, saw this group of Middle Americans as being overshadowed in the media by the more vocal minority.Preceding Nixon by half a century, it was employed in 1919 by Calvin Coolidge's campaign for the 1920 presidential nomination.