Overton Window: A term that refers to the acceptable range of public discourse, with those venturing outside the window considered non-mainstream.
Social media is breaking the political 'Overton Window' -- the ability of elites to determine the outside edges of acceptable public conversation.
The Overton Window was imagined as a limit on public opinion, but in politics, it's the limit on what politicians will express in public. Think of it as a way of describing what the public is currently ready to accept on any issue, so that politicians can then best decide how to move them toward what they want.
Many believe that politicians move the window, but that's actually rare. Frankly, politicians typically don't determine what is politically acceptable; more often they react to it and validate it. Generally speaking, policy change follows political change, which itself follows social change. The most durable policy changes are those that are supported by strong social movements. Gay marriage for example.
When social and political forces bring about change, the window of political possibility shifts up or down the spectrum and can also expand to include more policy options or shrink to include fewer. The window presents a menu of policy choices to politicians: From their point of view, relatively safe choices are inside the window and politically riskier choices (or bolder ones, if you prefer) are outside.
Politicians who support policies outside the window are one of two kinds — true leaders who have the rare ability to shift the window by themselves, or politicians who risk electoral defeat because they are perceived as out of touch.
The Overton Window that until a few months ago defined American political discourse was relatively small, framed by a set of liberal constraints that have dominated American society and stifled intellectual debate for at least the last five decades.
Liberals, and their parrots in the mainstream media, have used terms like "racist" and "xenophobic" to scare people toward the Left. Then, white-flag waving Republican politicians fall into the trap of believing the Liberal media narrative, and go as far Left as they can in the foolish hopes of getting the political support of the media and moderate liberals.
Liberals have become all too comfortable with relying on slurs to silence opposition, but it's no longer enough for them to call "hateful" those who don't want open borders and instead recognize and embrace the value of America's fundamentally European andChristian heritage. They must now convince their audience why things like open borders and multiculturalism and are desirable.
The voters have now made it through the maze of mainstream media propaganda and come face to face with the LIES of the liberal elite — who, until Nov. 8, ruled the interpretation of current events — and told them loudly and clearly that they no longer have the power to control voters' perceptions.
The immediacy of social media has DESTROYED the left's ability to "determine" the "acceptable" public narrative of any political debate. Efforts to censor the Right on social media are futile. Ask yourself, "Why do we need 'The Nightly News'?" "Why do we need newspapers?" By the time "news" reaches these fountains of the "public narrative", who cares about it? It's old news...public opinion has already been decided at light speed on social media.
While many of Trump’s actual proposals may possibly be misguided, nonsensical, or untenable, by smashing the window, the President has begun the process of freeing the American people from the artificial and destructive constraints of Left-defined discourse.
To be clear, this change is occurring both for good and for ill. The shattering of the Overton Window reflects the shattering of the American consensus, and the result will likely be deeper polarization, and even less civility, with further strains on the ties that bind our nation together. At the same time, however, the Left’s very success at defining the terms of discourse meant that the price of civility and unity was all too often an acceptance of liberal norms and manners. It meant swallowing liberal pieties and confining our discourse to Left-approved terms. In other words, it often meant surrender.
Donald Trump has skillfully manipulated the national media using the Overton Window by discovering that the accepted boundaries of where the window lies on the right is not where the window actually is.
His statements attacking the post-WWII political consensus are outside the generally accepted understanding of the position of the Overton Window on freer trade, freer immigration and the need to transfer some national sovereignty to supranational organizations such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, which the western political elites have advocated for over 70 years as necessary to avoid a third world war, which would be fought among nuclear armed states.
The national media pounced on some of his comments attacking these pillars of globalization as being outside the realm of respectable political speech and widely publicized those controversial statements thinking that it would bury his political career. Instead we discovered that Trump gained votes and support for vocalizing those positions.
Trump won the nomination by discovering topics of acceptable political speech outside the Overton Window on the right side of the political spectrum that were thought to be taboo. Much to the dismay of the Left, he has shifted the Overton Window, and potentially crushed the mainstream media's ability to successfully further dictate public opinion, and quite possibly its existence.
"We will no longer surrender this country, or its people, to the false song of globalism" - Donald Trump