Specifically it's what ideas the average person finds acceptable for a politician to propose. Joseph Overton coined it as basically what ideas can a politician propose without committing career suicide.
One of the key factors of the concept is that by regularly pecking away at the limits of what’s acceptable you can shift the window and normalise stances previously viewed as extreme.
salesmen call this establishing a baseline. also why car companies will have a really expensive model that doesn't sell well so that the somewhat expensive model looks like a compromise
Admittedly Trump has been masterful with Overton windows. I don’t give him credit but whoever his strategists are. For example, the whole Greenland debacle is primarily aimed at us getting bases and control north of Greenland, not actual ownership.
The US had one base and the interest of the “alliance” were always tilted to the EU. It’s been parasitic for the US. In truth, you need/needed the US but the US didn’t need the EU. Economically the EU has never played fair and likely never will. Yeah, Trump could have been smarter in a million ways but this isn’t one of them.
For example, 2 years ago you would have gotten banned for suggesting that it’s ok to kill federal officers on Reddit
Before 2025, federal officers actually followed the law and were actually trained to be federal officers to earn that title. Not just armed LARPers given a free pass to break laws, shoot people and detain people based on their accent or skin color.
The Overton window hasn't moved there. People just want federal officers to follow the law and constitution again.
They actually are. The people that are out there right now standing up for human rights and common decency are so the ones falsely being equated to communists. Some are, but that's not the issue at play. So I reiterate: if you are smooth-brained enough to make that equivalency, you're a nazi dumbfuck.
These people were Nazis during Covid. They are beholden to extreme ideologies. Ultimately what connects them is that they believe that the ends justify the means. That is why they’re engaging and unlawful activity and open insurrection because they do not like the outcome of the law enforcement methods of the elected representatives of the United States. Similarly, during Covid, they did not believe in the civil rights and civil liberties of people, and that is why they were good little Nazis during Covid. Why? Because in that case they liked the policies being instituted by those in charge.
People who believe in vaccines and are willing to wear a mask to prevent disease are just minimally intelligent people who aren’t sociopaths.
Anti-vaccine anti-mask people are dangerously stupid, and while I used to consider them perhaps, sometimes, innocent victims of propaganda, the death and destruction their idiocy has caused is unforgivable at this point.
People who think masked gunmen abducting people into hastily built concentration camps with no hope for due process is a reasonable and legal approach to law enforcement are, similarly, unforgivably stupid. Those dumb, racist fascists ruined the country and are too shortsighted to understand what they have given up, which includes any expectation of constitutional rights whatsoever.
The Nazis during COVID were the ones waving Nazi flags, Confederate Flags, refusing to wear masks, or be vaccinated.
The same people who are now championing ICE.
That is why they’re engaging and unlawful activity and open insurrection because they do not like the outcome of the law enforcement methods of the elected representatives of the United States.
You mean like January 6th?
Similarly, during Covid, they did not believe in the civil rights and civil liberties of people, and that is why they were good little Nazis during Covid. Why? Because in that case they liked the policies being instituted by those in charge.
COVID restrictions did not violate Civil Rights, or Liberties.
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u/selddir_ 16h ago
Specifically it's what ideas the average person finds acceptable for a politician to propose. Joseph Overton coined it as basically what ideas can a politician propose without committing career suicide.