The Overton Window

What We May Or May Not Consider

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

Basically the Overton window is the idea of one Joseph Overton, who was Senior Vice President of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy at the time of his death in 2003.

https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow

The idea is that all ideas acceptable to the public reside inside a given range, the Overton window. Unacceptable ideas fall outside of the window, but it may be the policy of a political party or some other bunch of busy bodies to work to shift the window so that ideas previously untenable become accepted, as well as making previously acceptable ideas unacceptable. It's another take on the third rule of propaganda, to wit:

The rule of transfusion - manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one's own ends.

https://drp314.substack.com/p/propaganda-thoughts

Andrew Breitbart is famous for saying that politics is downstream from culture, so if you want to win your political battle you might start by shifting the culture. For example, what is or is not inside of You-tube's Overton Window is what sets their “community standards.” I think though that their community standards are artificially created for political effect.

"I'm a former lefty, I understand how vicious these people are, I understand that they feel they have the right to control the sandbox, and I am trying to orchestrate media that isn't just out there to push the right-of-center Libertarian narrative, I'm out there to destroy the false order, the false control that the left has in controlling the mainstream media in America." ~ Andrew Breitbart

It's been the policy of leftists to shift the Overton window so that formerly taboo ideas become acceptable if they are useful for the destruction of Western civilization. For instance, it was once unthinkable to allow a homosexual couple to adopt a child, but now one is castigated for allowing that it might be improper, or for using the scientific term “homosexual” instead of the the word meaning happy.

"The idea of the Overton Window is that there`s a fairly narrow window of proposals in any particular policy area that people will take seriously that wouldn`t get you written off as a kook. The way to move or expand that window is to advocate super extreme positions which change the realm of what`s politically possible because after something super nuts has been floated, thereafter, slightly less nuts positions will start to look acceptable and moderate by comparison." ~ Rachel Maddow

Although an agent of the human ant hill, she does have a way with words.

The Left has been trying to move the Second Amendment completely out of the Overton window for decades.

Conservative radio personality Glenn Beck wrote a novel, a thriller, entitled The Overton Window. In it a major marketing firm is involved with various powerful organizations in shifting the the Overton window of the world so as to bring totalitarianism. All purely fictional of course, and a pretty good story.

The window has been shifting on all manner of things, and not always in a good way, though it's important to realize that there are really at least two such windows. We have the window representing what the people really think, and we have the false one presented to us by the “elites” and the main steam media, telling us that all manner of unthinkable things are now thinkable.

The Bud Light disastrous marketing decision was probably made as a result of thinking that the false window represented the true window. It may have been believed that the real Overton window had shifted to such an extent that the Budweiser customer base would not be embarrassed to be seen drinking a Bud Light.

The Overton windows, both real and false, have drifted a great deal in the past decades. Some see it as progress while others see it as decay.

Consider the 45 goal for the destruction of America.

https://drp314.substack.com/p/the-45-communist-goals-for-the-destruction

A few of the goals are:

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32 Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

These mostly show a shift in the respective Overton windows since the publishing og the list in 1963.

I propose that we all seek to shift the Overton window back in the direction of American ideals.

Stay Brave, Stay Free