“shy Trump” or “shy Tory” is just a rebranding of Nixon’s “silent majority”. It’s an old trope that makes right wing bigots feel good about their beliefs because “most other people are like me, I knew it!”. It’s not true of course, but it seems to be effective at emboldening the base. The right only speaks to their base now, because that’s all they have left (and have had since at least H.W. Bush).
