The Overton Window

[toucana]

In the early 1990s, an american political scientist called Joseph Paul Overton (1960-2003) popularised a concept that became widely known as ‘The Overton Window’.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overton_Window

Also known as the ‘window of discourse’, it represents the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at any given time. It is visualised as a vertical axis divided into what one political commentator Joshua Terviño called  ‘the six degrees of acceptance’ :

- unthinkable

- acceptable

- sensible

- popular

- policy

The hypothesis is that politicians and lawmakers typically attempt to act freely only within a window that is seen as ‘acceptable’. The problem is that not only do the parameters of these windows shift and expand over time as societal values and expectations evolve, they can also be manipulated by the output of mainstream media, social media, and the advertising based algorithms which underpin them.

Extremists such as the MAGA cult and Project 2025 are aggressively seeking to move what was once seen as ‘unacceptable’ into the realms of  ‘sensible’ and ‘policy’. This is a progressive process where the accomplishment of each step preps the next - rather like a pawn promotion race in chess, or an oshi [押し] ‘push’ move (if you happen to be a Japanese Go player).

In the light of the first 50 days of the second Trump administration, it is instructive to see what sharply upward flexions of the Overton Window are currently being pushed by its spokesmen in various press briefings to date:

- The annexation and subjugation of Canada as the 51st state of the USA.

- The annexation of Greenland and its mineral resources as an American dependency.

- The American seizure of Gaza, and the ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from its territory.

- The forcible seizure of the Panama Canal zone by the USA.

- The abandonement of aid to Ukraine, and its military defeat by Russian aggression.

- A US abandonment of its NATO membership and legacy obligations to western European security.

- The abandonment of Taiwan to an invasion by mainland China.

- A total political and economic isolationist retreat by the USA behind high tariff trade barriers.

- A wholesale destruction of the apparatus of almost all federal goverment spending programs.

- The destruction of Social Care, Medicaid and VA support programs.

- The closure of the Department of Education

-  A sustained attack on the integrity of the judiciary as an independent arm of government.

- The summary abolition of the US presidential electoral system and term limits.

If you think the last item is a stretch, then re-read what Trump told a caucus of Christian voters last year on 26 July 2024:

Quote

 

WASHINGTON, July 27 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told Christians on Friday that if they vote for him this November, "in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-christians-they-wont-have-vote-after-this-election-2024-07-27/

 

 

footnotes:

- ‘The Overton Window’ (2010) was also the title of a ‘faction’ thriller by conservative commentator Glen Beck.

- The photo below is from the film ‘Steamboat Bill Jr.’ (1928) and was said to have been the most dangerous stunt that Buster Keaton ever performed on film. The entire frontage of a cyclone damaged building collapses into the street on top of him, but he survives because of a fortunately placed window.

 

[TheVat]

I started using the term about ten years ago.  Not a coincidence.

 

Aside:  I thought Keaton's stunts in The General were more dangerous, overall, but agree the SB Jr stunt was impressive.  The locomotive stunts in The General were more dangerous in the sense of depending on Keaton's flawless timing and coordination to not be killed or maimed.  The SB Jr stunt depended on simple geometry.

[toucana]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Aside:  I thought Keaton's stunts in The General were more dangerous, overall, but agree the SB Jr stunt was impressive.  The locomotive stunts in The General were more dangerous in the sense of depending on Keaton's flawless timing and coordination to not be killed or maimed.  The SB Jr stunt depended on simple geometry.

Keaton actually broke his neck while performing this stunt during the filming of Sherlock Jr. in 1924, but didn’t know until over a decade later, when a doctor took an x-ray for a routine medical insurance check-up, and spotted the healed fracture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHoT_Qch7jE

Edited March 13 by toucana
corrected 1928 to 1924

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

The SB Jr stunt depended on simple geometry.

Well, and the quality of his builders. If that one went wrong, there wasn't much to do about it. Jackie Chan famously replicated many of Buster Keaton's stunts, including the falling wall. IIRC it looked less massive, but I think it clipped his shoulders. And perhaps some of the worst injuries he suffered (either of them) were from seemingly simple stunts.

Just to get back on-topic, I think that the idea of an Overton window is a bit outdated. I think ultimately the idea of the window requires a common set of standards that are broadly used. But the internet has fractured this consensus, and I think it mostly coincided with Trumpism. This is not to say that MAGA gleefully adds to the fracturing gleefully, but I just don't think that they are the cause. Rather they are using the changing system. This, incidentally is what worries me the most. I do think that surprisingly MAGA has figured out the new world. It is run on emotions, rather than facts. It is based on occupying attention rather than than paying attention to real issues.

Meanwhile, the folks how are not on the crazy train still hold onto concepts that likely are not working as they used to anymore. And I suspect that this is at least one of the reasons why folks get increasingly attracted to the lunatic right.

What I am curious about is then whether a new consensus is formed when the issues start hitting them personally and directly rather than in the abstract, or affecting folks they don't care about. Because there might be a consensus to be had around selfishness. Which is sad in an Ayn Rand way, but I am not sure whether we even got that.

 

[toucana]

46 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Just to get back on-topic, I think that the idea of an Overton window is a bit outdated. I think ultimately the idea of the window requires a common set of standards that are broadly used. But the internet has fractured this consensus, and I think it mostly coincided with Trumpism. This is not to say that MAGA gleefully adds to the fracturing gleefully, but I just don't think that they are the cause. Rather they are using the changing system. This, incidentally is what worries me the most. I do think that surprisingly MAGA has figured out the new world. It is run on emotions, rather than facts. It is based on occupying attention rather than than paying attention to real issues.

What interests me is the deliberate manipulation of public discourse by MAGA extremists. They inject utterly lunatic policy ideas into every political debate, and do so in an almost bored manner, as if their suggestions were entirely normal and non-controversial: “Let’s invade Canada”, “Seize Greenland”, Turn Gaza into a millionaire’s riviera”, “Abolish the Department of Education“,”Crash the entire Federal system of government” - etc.

It’s not normal. All of these are studied and extreme over-plays which are designed to warp the boundaries of public debate out of all recognition, and to confuse casual listeners - in line with the stated MAGA goal of “flooding the end-zone with sh*t ”.

I feel it’s really important for those who believe in a working democracy to keep restating the core ethical and legal assumptions about where the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour lie, and to re-centre The Overton Window in order to resist the ‘normalisation’ of neo-Nazi lunacy in public debate.

We had our own version of this here in UK  back in 2022 during the 49 days of Liz Truss’s tenure as PM (between 6 September and 25 October). She was forced to resign by the economic chaos that ensued from her very first budget. I very much hope that Trump does likewise.