The whole Vietnam War experience took a massive psychological toll on the American sense of self. Nixon sure uses the word "peace" a whole bunch in his 1969 speech, but the United States wouldn't pull out of Vietnam until four years later. Ouch.

To make matters worse, drug use had skyrocketed among U.S. troops in Vietnam, evidence of American-created atrocities was beginning to surface, and tons of resources were being put into the American war effort.

And to make matters the absolute worst-est, Nixon would soon become a symbol of political corruption when his Watergate scandal hit the newsstands all across the country.

This wasn't, to put it mildly, the best time for flag-waving patriotic fervor.

(Psst: for all you movie nerds, there have been a ton of movies made about the negatives associated with the Vietnam War and the 1970s in general. Check out this list for a taste.)

Fast forward to the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. U.S. forces began operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003. At the moment of this publication, U.S. forces are still operating in those countries. That's a long time, guys.

This kind of military involvement in foreign affairs has reminded Americans of the amount of time American forces were present in Vietnam. In fact, the memory of Vietnam began to characterize the anti-war protests of the 2000s.

People who grew up in the Vietnam era or grew up watching those movies began to worry that the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan would mirror that of Vietnam. To be fair, they are entirely different eras and have occurred under entirely different circumstances, but that hasn't kept people from making the comparisons.

Even though the Vietnam War and bell-bottom pants never really made it onto anybody's "My Favorite Things From the 1970s" list, Nixon's "great silent majority" speech actually did.

Whenever politicians want to rile up voters, they turn to this phrase as a way to get those support numbers up. For example, during the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump used the phrase "silent majority" as a way to get support from those people who felt silenced by politicians, media outlets, and other (typically liberal) politically active Americans.

And, even if they don't use a version of the phrase itself, the idea is hugely popular with politicians. John Kerry used the phrase "let America be America again" during the 2004 presidential election. Unlike Nixon and Trump, though, Kerry wanted to get all those Democratic Party voters who felt left out of politics to unite and vote him into the presidency.

What's the moral of the story here? Apparently every politician needs a good catchphrase.