Revelations that members of Germany’s far-right AfD discussed mass deportation plans have pushed tens of thousands of people to protest and sparked debate on whether the anti-immigrant party should be banned.
From Cologne to Leipzig to Nuremberg, Germans across the country have poured into the streets over the last week, with another 100 demonstrations expected through the weekend.
Many of the demonstrations have been held under the banner “together against the far-right”, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also joining a spontaneous gathering in Potsdam, where they live.
Since this article is coming from Germany, the term used locally would be “schweigende Mehrheit”. This is based on Elisabeth Noelle-Neumanns work on the spiral of silence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence
In this case the head of the German Verfassungsschutz (one of the spy agencies tasked with fighting extremism) asked the silent majority to stand up against right wing extremism and Nazism and therefore this term is used here. Those american far right idiots don’t have anything to do with it. Could be that they heard something about Noelle-Neumanns work and didn’t understand it, but even that is unlikely