The Overton Window

The Overton Window has moved so far that Brexit will be considered successful as long as it doesn't lead to one particular kind of dystopia. All the other kinds of dystopia will be considered a success.

I wish they'd run with the slogan "Brexit: it will be bad but it won't be Mad Max bad"

plus.google.com/+AdeOshineye/posts/c1YmHQ63Cus

If you still do not realise how much Overton Window has not been manipulated try looking at this vodeo.

twitter.com/gaywonk/status/1009530065179340800?lang=en

When Donald Trump descended his golden escalator almost three years ago to make a campaign announcement that decried the influx of “drugs” and “rapists” from Mexico, among other outrageous claims, he established the one aspect of his political project on which nearly everyone could agree.

Trump was shifting the Overton window. Or was he expanding it? Opening it? Climbing through it? Smashing it wide open? A once-obscure poli-sci concept is having its moment in the sun. Trump’s unexpected popularity has revealed a constituency for both policy ideas and personal behavior that were once verboten in American politics. But in casting President Trump as the agent of the Overton window’s expansion, pundits have misunderstood a crucial part of its meaning.

The concept of the “Overton window,” the range of ideas outside which lie political exile or pariahdom, was first batted around in a series of conversations by the late free-market advocate Joseph Overton in the 1990s. After Overton’s untimely death in a plane crash in 2003, his friend and colleague at the libertarian Mackinac Center, Joseph Lehman, formalized and named the idea in a presentation meant to educate fellow think-tank warriors on the power of consistent advocacy. Ring the bell loudly for your idea, no matter how unpopular, and back it up with plenty of research and evidence, so the thinking went. Today’s fringe theory can become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom by the shifting of the finely tuned gears that move popular opinion; to Overton and Lehman the role of the think tank was to at least familiarize voters with these ideas, giving them an institutional home when public opinion finally moved their way. But there was a bright line between elected officials and everybody else. Politicians were constrained by the existing range of public opinion, that fickle child of social, cultural and economic forces, among too many others to count, to push for new, untested ideas.

“Honestly, we needed a way to explain to regular donors why they should support a think tank in the first place if they care about ideas,” Lehman told me. “The Overton window began literally as a way to solve a little bit of a fundraising and communications challenge. And Joe Overton, my colleague, was busy trying to work this into a brochure, but he died before that was complete.” He went on to say, “It fell to us who worked with him to put it together.”

For the first few years of its existence, the concept was mostly the domain of conservative wonks, a typical example being Ross Douthat’s invoking it in a 2007 argument with leftist historian Rick Perlstein. Through the Bush era its use in the national press was scant, but in the right-wing ferment of Obama’s first term a particularly influential pseudo-libertarian became so infatuated with the concept that he named an entire novel after it. The moonlighting pulp writer and auteur of the chalkboard Glenn Beck wrote a 2010 potboiler, conveniently titled The Overton Window. It follows a nefarious PR executive who pushes the window to the point where Americans are willing to accept a hostile takeover and shredding of the Constitution. This lead-them-by-the-nose interpretation of the theory may not have exactly matched its authors’ intent, but it popularized the phrase to the point where over the next several years it cropped up with increasing frequency. Activists on the left embraced the idea in pushing Democrats toward a more open immigration policy, as did the restrictionists on the right as represented by then-Senator Jeff Sessions.

And then Trump came along. By transforming the far right’s racial subtext on immigration into … let’s call it “super-text,” Trump revealed that the Overton window was far wider than establishment politicians and the media had previously assumed. The dynamic played out on the left, as well, with Bernie Sanders’ unexpectedly strong showing in the 2016 Democratic primaries revealing that for a large chunk of America’s liberals, “socialist” was no longer a dirty word. Whatever the reason, the electorate was amenable to ideas that just four years earlier would have been anathema.

Suddenly the Overton window was everywhere. When Trump floated his idea to restrict all travel by Muslims to the United States in December 2015, National Review’s David French put the idea front and center in an anti-Trump column, and The Atlantic’s Megan Garber invoked it in an essay on Trump’s purported demagoguery. The window was even exported overseas, with Suzanne Moore in The Guardian ascribing Jeremy Corbyn’s unlikely ascendancy to its expansion. Trump’s shocking victory in November 2016, then, was proof of its shattering once and for all.

Today, the concept has become so ubiquitous that it’s ascended (or descended, depending on your perspective) to meme status—there’s an Overton window for coffee, for the Star Wars universe, for Cleveland Cavaliers star J.R. Smith’s achievements in the field of volume shooting. The alt-right has earnestly embraced the concept, seeking to normalize explicitly pro-white rhetoric in the public sphere. Paul Ryan’s recent primary challenger, “pro-white” Wisconsin businessman and alt-right darling Paul Nehlen, explicitly acknowledged that goal during a Breitbart radio appearance in December. And the idea that Trump continues to serve as the master builder, expanding and moving the window around the house of American ideas, is refreshed nearly every week on Twitter.

But by focusing on Trump and other politicians at both extremes who have taken advantage of a newly permissive political environment, pundits miss the point. Activists on both the right and the left understand Overton’s original concept much more intuitively than the news media: politicians respond to the public’s definition of the window, not the other way around. Conventional wisdom determined that hardline anti-immigration rhetoric and radically redistributive economic policy were non-starters with the American public, but given the opportunity to vote for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the American public happily proved conventional wisdom about the Overton window on those issues to be wrong.

The effort to understand how and why that shift occurred has taken up a small Bitcoin fortune’s worth of bandwidth. Whether it was economic anxiety, racist backlash or the failure of our institutions to inspire trust and loyalty, the first step to understanding this disorienting political moment is to recognize that the American political imagination has expanded. In 2006, the Mackinac Center’s Nathan J. Russell described the relationship between voters and politicians: “Politicians are constrained by ideas, even if they have no interest in them personally. What they can accomplish … is framed by the set of ideas held by their constituents—the way people think. Politicians have the flexibility to make up their own minds, but negative consequences await the elected officeholder who strays too far.”

Today, Lehman says he still agrees with that diagnosis. “The most common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window,” he said. “That is absolutely false. Lawmakers are actually in the business of detecting where the window is, and then moving to be in accordance with it"

www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/25/overton-window-explained-definition-meaning-217010

The Overton Window has moved so far that Brexit will be considered successful as long as it doesn't lead to one particular kind of dystopia. All the other kinds of dystopia will be considered a success.

I wish they'd run with the slogan "Brexit: it will be bad but it won't be Mad Max bad"

plus.google.com/+AdeOshineye/posts/c1YmHQ63Cus

So, how do you shift the Overton window? The answer is simple: You have to stand outside it and pull. Social change always begins with a few brave people who dare to advocate something previously unthinkable. And most of those first-generation advocates, to be perfectly honest, suffer scorn, ridicule and opprobrium, are often even targets of persecution and violence. But by their mere existence, by their willingness to stand fast on their principles and refusal to compromise, they stretch the boundaries of what the majority considers possible and redefine what counts as the "moderate" position.

bigthink.com/daylight-atheism/moving-the-overton-window

Surely by now we should all be able to see how the Overton Window has been suddenly and brutally dragged to the right since the Putin/Brexit/Trump forces have come to the fore in the last few years?.

Tommy Robinson is one of the great beneficiaries of fake news – and the restrictions placed by the courts upon the reporting of the real facts of his case have only helped him further.

To his fans, Mr Robinson – born Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – is a champion of free speech, while his critics are part of a politically correct conspiracy to silence him. The reality is that he is an extremist and a thug. He has been a member of the British National Party, a founder of the English Defence League (which he left, he claimed, because he was concerned it had been infiltrated by the far Right) and a founder of the anti-Islam organisation Pegida UK.

www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2018/08/01/public-needs-know-truth-tommy-robinson/

The acceptance of this appalling person as a mainstream political figure is good example of how the UK Overton Window has been dragged sharply to the right. He and his ilk should rightly be considered beyond the pale.

If you have a spare ten minutes, you might find it interesting to watch this video by a guy who, in his own words, grew up as a "super-right wing radical libertarian" Do not be put off by the flag in the background. He explains the concept very well.

www.non-compete.com/the-overton-window-video/

The Overton window of acceptable amount of identity politics in elected positions seems to have shifted (beyond just the presidency)

www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/8rzg5o/the_overton_window_of_acceptable_amount_of/

Which makes it so much easier for those further right of Farage to move into his old place and appear in the Overton window of acceptability. Frightening stuff.

And that Farage is now mainstream when once he would be seen as right of the Tory party.

That was a horrifying report. The Republican Party has moved a long way to the right since what now seem like the good old days of George W Bush!

A shocking report on Channel 4 news shows just how far the Overton Window, limiting the acceptability of policies in US politics has moved.

Unbelievably, Nazis and white supremacists like Arthur Jones are now standing for election as official Republicans candidates.

This link shows how some American Christians groups understand the Overton Window theory and use it to their advantage,

"The shift that we are after is going to involve pushing boundaries, being radical, bringing up the unthinkable. That’s how we are going to start to shift hearts and minds – when we fearlessly and repeatedly and effectively present God’s truth to our nation."

reformedperspective.ca/the-overton-window-shows-what-speaking-the-unthinkable-can-do/

This graphic explains the Overton Window.

Now try to imagine how it can be moved.

And look at what has happened in our recent history.

There’s a concept in political theory developed by Joseph P. Overton which suggests that there’s a “window” of acceptable ideas and policy proposals in public discourse. Everything inside the window is normal and expected, while everything outside the window is radical, ridiculous, or unthinkable. And Overton argued that the easiest way to move that window was to force people to consider ideas at the extremes, as far away from the window as possible. Because forcing people to consider an unthinkable idea, even if they rejected it, would make all less extreme ideas seem acceptable by comparison -- it would move the “window” slowly in that direction.

That “Overton Window” concept is helpful for explaining how media coverage of Trump has been warped during his first year in office. Trump’s presidency has forced news networks to grapple with conspiracy theories, right-wing trolls, and dishonest government spokespeople -- making them a regular fixture of our national political debates. And that grappling has moved the Overton Window in ways that will warp our politics long after Trump’s presidency comes to an end.

www.vox.com/2017/12/21/16806676/strikethrough-how-trump-overton-window-extreme-normal

"Much of contemporary politics resembles the brainwashing techniques of religious sects, which discredit sources of information that might contradict the cult’s teachings. Political leaders cannot order their followers to cut off communications with their families and leave their partners if they are not fellow members of the sect, but they have found other ways to imitate L. Ron Hubbard. Their most effective technique is to take a half-truth—that all journalistic choices are ideological to some extent—and use it as a weapon to suppress the full truth."

From an article in the New York Review of Books by Nick Cohen, entitled "How the BBC lost the plot on Brexit"

www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/07/12/how-the-bbc-lost-the-plot-on-brexit/

Nelson Mandela was on the US terrorist watch list until 2008.

Those who are trying by every means possible to overturn a democratically achieved result threaten to undermine the very principals of true democracy.

Actually, the right to express opposition and to work for change is one of the pillars of democracy.

"Don’t normalize this” has become a kind of rallying cry during President Trump’s first year in office -- a reminder to not get too acclimated to Trump’s norm-breaking and erratic behavior.

But the real danger of the Trump presidency might have less to do with Trump’s abnormality and more to do with how “normal” he makes other Republicans look by comparison.

There’s a concept in political theory developed by Joseph P. Overton which suggests that there’s a “window” of acceptable ideas and policy proposals in public discourse. Everything inside the window is normal and expected, while everything outside the window is radical, ridiculous, or unthinkable. And Overton argued that the easiest way to move that window was to force people to consider ideas at the extremes, as far away from the window as possible. Because forcing people to consider an unthinkable idea, even if they rejected it, would make all less extreme ideas seem acceptable by comparison -- it would move the “window” slowly in that direction.

www.vox.com/2017/12/21/16806676/strikethrough-how-trump-overton-window-extreme-normal

A very interesting thread. Thank you varian for introducing me to the theory of the 'Overton Window' - a scary concept which, the more I think about it, the more I can think of applications to present day developments.

Barack Obama's speech bears reading carefully and if you want to draw parallels with our situation, think about "pretence of democracy" and ask who are "those in positions of power"

varian
How right is Barak Obama
"I am not being alarmist, I'm simply stating the facts. Look around — strongman politics are ascendant, suddenly, whereby elections and some pretense of democracy are maintained, the form of it, where those in powers seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning."

Those who are trying by every means possible to overturn a democratically achieved result threaten to undermine the very principals of true democracy.

Not wishing to undermine the point about the Brexit referendum in the OP, but Overton’s concept seems rather obvious. Isn’t this how all political change has always come about - from unthinkable to unpopular to bound-to-happen to mainstream?

In an address Tuesday in honor of the late Nelson Mandela ahead of the 100th anniversary of his birth, President Barack Obama criticized populist movements toward authoritarianism around the world and ridiculed the "utter loss of shame among political leaders" who lie.

"The politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment began to appear. And that kind of politics is now on the move. It's on the move at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago," he told the crowd of around 15,000 people in Johannesburg. "I am not being alarmist, I'm simply stating the facts. Look around — strongman politics are ascendant, suddenly, whereby elections and some pretense of democracy are maintained, the form of it, where those in powers seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning."

edition.cnn.com/2018/07/17/politics/obama-mandela-day-address-intl/index.html

When Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour Leader I did wonder whether it would result in the political centre of gravity moving further to the left.

What has happened instead is a more dramatic polarisation of politics where the extremes seem to hold sway, and those in both main parties with more moderate views find themselves squeezed out. The LibDems have recovered some support but still have a long way to go to even regain the pre-2010 position.

Both these articles on political theory - the Overton Window and Fintan O'Toole's warning about the rise of fascism, cause serious concerns. The most difficult question is how to get people to realise that any of this is happening, that their opinions have been manipulated and in more ways than one (not just in relation to brexit), they have, in the words of Aarron Banks "been led up the garden path".