Who actually controls the ‘Overton Window’???
From Wiki…
In the early 1990s, Joseph Overton described a spectrum from “more free” to “less free” with regard to governmental intervention, which he presented graphically on a vertical axis to avoid comparison with the left-right political spectrum. As the spectrum moves or expands, an idea at a given location on the scale may become more or less politically acceptable. Overton claimed that politicians typically act freely only within the “window” of those seen as acceptable. After his death, Joseph Lehman, further developed the idea and named it after him.
According to Lehman:
The most common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window. 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.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37831314
As we’ve seen in the last 10-15 years, what is ‘politically acceptable’ has changed radically.
My question is, ‘who’ actually is driving what is acceptable?
Is the the ‘left’, the new LLMs (AIs), or the ‘special groups’, e.g. LBTQ+???
And what happens when there is pushback?
Those with a ‘platform’ seem to drive their various agendas, but are they really driving anything or merely parroting what they’ve been told to say? I have no idea.
As a ‘boomer’, I know I’m well outside the mainstream today as a lot of what I believe is Christian based, patriotic, and I believe in taking responsibility for my actions. I’m one small voice, with no real access to make a difference, other than with my children and grandchildren. Sadly, even though they basically agree with me, their ‘peers’ are a different kettle of fish, to put it mildly.
There is no question the political landscape has changed radically, from bipartisanship, to partisan, to now dissention within the parties themselves. And more and more people are registering as ‘independent’, eschewing all of the political parties.
Will those independents be what save us???
What say you?
I have no clue who — or what — controls the Overton Window, though the phenomenon is clear enough. What bothers me about a great many politicians — and ordinary folks and even some clergy (looking at you, Church of England) is that there seems to be no solid moral and ethical base to them — they will say, and do, whatever fits i that moving window, and it changes with time.
I don’t recall anyone changing the two Great Commandments, nor the ten derivatives… but I’m even older than you are, so maybe my memory is slipping…
The only thing that will save us is for all believers in Jesus Christ to get on their knees, repent, and call on God to heal our land.
No one person or group drives the Overton window. It’s a complicated reflection of the agenda’s of multiple groups and ideologies. But it can be influenced and the left is generally more adept at that than the GOP.
The Overton Window is under the control of The Outer Limits. They will control the vertical and horizontal.
😂
I think the Overton Window is controlled by the media.
People listen to the “mainstream” and think that’s the main stream thought.
To paraphrase the great Prophet Flip Wilson, The window of what’s happening now.
“My question is, ‘who’ actually is driving what is acceptable?”
Money.
Those with money decide what is fashionable or trendy.
Money influence media thru advertising and directs its commentary.
Money influences elections.
He who counts the votes per Uncle Joe.
I disagree with the question.
‘Who controls it’ is deterministic. ‘Who controls it’ implies that the same group always have a lock on it.
I think Overton window is something of a random variable, a function of many variables.
At the very least, we see a consequence of a fight between many small p parties.
For coordinated malicious manipulation of what it is acceptable to say, we can talk about preference cascades, and we can talk about reality surprising the cabal in ways that the audience does not continue buying the story.
Audience buy in at a theatrical performance is not a steady state 100% thing. It is a crowd, where the crowds are definitely reported to have moods.
Consider that series of novels can break the readers’ illusion, and stop selling. This happens because the novelist cannot compel readers to believe arbitrary bullshit. The job of the novelist is to guess at what readers will find credible in context, and select the things that will fit together in their minds.
There were two murders in I want to say September of 2025. Charlie and Iryna. Before those murders, one could deduce every element of inhumanity in behavior that was proceeding to those ends. One could talk about that deduction. The public reception was relatively quiet. Then those murders were filmed, adn the videos went viral.
To an extent, that was reality as a random variable challenging the managed narrative. Persons felt more confident in arguing those points in public.
There are specific industries with specific groups of insiders colluding to exclude persons and views that they do not agree with.
In a relatively positive example, where I agree with the exclusion, consider aviation as an industry. There are degrees of saying modern aircraft are pretty safe that are acceptable to industry insiders. But, if you were to say that 1930s/1940s military aviation rates, or 1910s/1920s aviation incident rates are acceptable targets for the current day (1), you would rightly be ignored for selection to certain senior management positions. Among other reasons, the general level of industrial safety might be higher today, with following shifts in public perception of acceptable hazard.
But, even if I were to say such outrageous (and untrue) things in private, there may be managers in aviation who would be okay with hiring me for limited tasks where I would be an individual contributor. Mopping office space, for example.
Anyway, digression aside, some industries like academia and media were doing very bad things with their internal censorship regimes.
(1) Context I meant here was for civil aviation of the mainstream commercial carriers. I don’t know any statistics for modern military aviation, and more importantly, I don’t understand the mission side of things.
The difficulty I see is not so much control of the Overton window, as observation of it. Politicians in particular tend to come from, and remain within, a worldview that does not match everyone else’s. So for instance where most people are horrified by the mutilation of children, politicians in their bubble think that sits somewhere in the range “sensible” to “policy” at least if it’s about transgenderism or immigrant culture.
All- Good points! And yes, I do believe money plays a significant part in the drivers!
The window constantly changes, and it’s more of a test of tolerance, isn’t it? Conservatives, by their nature, resist radical change, but there aren’t so many of those – not really. Pres. Trump is not conservative; he’s a populist who has some conservative values. Does that mean that the window is a litmus test of populism?