#overton window

I'll be in OTTAWA TOMORROW (Jan 28) at Perfect Books and in TORONTO with Tim Wu on FRIDAY (Jan 30).

I blame novelists: it's only in prose that we get the illusion of telepathy, of being inside the mind of another. No wonder novelistic tales of political transformation focus on the moral fortitude of individual leaders.

The problem is, it's a destructive lie.

Sure, leaders sometimes exhibit moral fortitude and courage. But we can't rely on our leaders to be perfect – or even pretty good. The only reliable way to get the leadership we deserve is to force our leaders to follow us, by organizing in political blocs that mete out severe punishments when they betray us.

Say what you will about the Tea Party, but boy, did they understand this. During the Obama years, any Republican that wavered from the party line was mercilessly tormented by Tea Party activists, who flooded their offices with calls and emails, showed up at their town halls, and at restaurants when they were trying to have dinner, and then they backed their primary opponents. The Tea Party years were a winnowing function for the GOP, and the only Republican politicians who survived were the ones who refused to compromise. This worked for them in world-historic ways. It was thanks to the Tea Party that the GOP was able to steal two Supreme Court seats, for example.

Corporate Democrats use the Tea Party as an example of why we can't let the public into progressive politics. After all, corporate Dems already have control over Democratic politicians, and so any organized rank-and-file bloc threatens their ability to push elected politicians to pursue grotesque policies like supporting genocide in Gaza or showering billions on ICE:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/seven-democrats-just-voted-to-approve-ice-funding-full-list/ar-AA1ULAn7

The seven Dems who voted to fund ICE knew that they were doing something that would be wildly unpopular with the voters who sent them to DC, but they did it anyway, because they aren't afraid of those voters. They treat their voters as ambulatory wallets to be terrorized into donating small sums via relentless text messages about the impending end of democracy in America, even as they vote for the impending end of democracy in America.

These seven lawmakers don't just need to be primaried: they need to be made an example of. Their names must be a curse. They must be confronted in public – long after they are out of office – by voters brandishing pictures of the people ICE murdered after receiving the funds they voted for. They must be haunted for this decision for the rest of their days. As Voltaire said, "Sometimes you must execute an admiral to encourage the others."

Here are their names:

Tom Suozzi (New York)

Henry Cuellar (Texas)

Don Davis (North Carolina)

Laura Gillen (New York)

Jared Golden (Maine)

Vicente Gonzalez (Texas)

Marie Glusenkamp Perez (Washington)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/seven-democrats-just-voted-to-approve-ice-funding-full-list/ar-AA1ULAn7

Politicians – even the most unhinged and narcissistic ones – go through life attuned to public rage. Even Trump. Why else would Trump have ordered ICE Obergruppenführer Gregory Bovino "home with his tail between his legs"?

https://prospect.org/2026/01/27/ice-greg-bovino-minneapolis-one-battle-after-another-sean-penn/

Counting on politicians to do the right thing out of principle is a loser's bet. Far more reliable is to bet on them doing the right thing because they're afraid of being cursed and humiliated and haunted by their betrayal to the end of their days.

Don't be fooled by politicians and pearl-clutchers insisting that the norms fairy and "comity" are the only way to get things done. We are not in an era of reaching across the aisle in a spirit of public service. We are in the era of fascist goons murdering our neighbors in the street and then dancing a celebratory jig. We arrived at this juncture in large part because we accepted glaring bullshit about "comity":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/30/meme-stocks/#comity

This isn't merely frustrated militancy on my part. I'm hoping that you will join me in this understanding of politics: that good leadership is downstream of politicians being terrified of betraying their duty to the public, and we need not rely on moral perfection to make progress.

The authors lament that most scholarship "marginalizes childhood sexual pleasure" and views children as “vulnerable subjects." They argue that we must "interrogate dominant narratives of sexual innocence that suppress young people's desires" and instead recognize how children "negotiate pleasure and meaning amid intersecting hierarchies of age, race, gender, and class." They reject what they call "adult-centric/adultist approaches to sexualities" and insist that "childhood pleasure is indispensable for an inclusive sociology and just sexual futures."

It is hard to read this as anything other than laying the intellectual groundwork for dismantling age-of-consent protections.

The central theme of the paper is "pleasure." This aligns with trends in international sex education policy, particularly the International Planned Parenthood Federation's Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) program, which explicitly shifted away from sex education centered around reproduction and toward what it calls "sexual expression, sexual fulfillment, and pleasure." Pleasure is one of seven core elements of CSE. Its Youth Policy, applying to "all young people irrespective of their age," declares a "right to pleasure" and "the right of all young people to enjoy sex and express their sexuality in the way that they choose."

It is therefore no surprise that the paper's authors frame the very notion of childhood sexual innocence as a barrier to progress.

They are saddened that "preadolescent children's erotic capacities are routinely pathologized." They argue that the "notion of childhood sexual innocence" is a harmful social construct that wrongly portrays children as "vulnerable to and in need of protection from sexuality." In their telling, "operating from the presumption of innate (sexual) innocence" leads scholars and the public to "overlook children's everyday pleasures" and attempt to "banish childhood sexuality altogether." They even go so far as to describe childhood sexual innocence as a "colonial fiction."

The fact that such arguments now appear in a flagship journal of the American Sociological Association should alarm everyone. As we repeatedly see, what begins as abstract theorizing in niche corners of academia rarely stays there. It trickles down into education, policy, and culture.

Many people and groups on the radical and far-right are harnessing a process known as audience capture in order to influence political policy. A group of anonymous X accounts is said to follow a “posting-to-policy” strategy. These accounts – some of which are run by disaffected Westminster professionals – post to inject their grievances into online discourse. Their goal is to see their narratives circulate and gain popularity within rightwing networks. Once established, they hope political actors, many of whom follow them, will take up the ideas. Use and discussion of the “Boriswave” is an example of this. The term, which refers to a rise in non-EU immigration under former prime minister Boris Johnson, originated and proliferated from this network. It is now commonly used in the mainstream and was deployed by Reform to justify its proposal to revoke indefinite leave to remain. Another example is the motability scheme, a programme that helps eligible disabled individuals lease a car. It was first highlighted and heavily criticised by anonymous accounts on X for being wasteful and subject to fraudulent abuse, and has dominated much of the discussion on welfare reform in 2025. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch recently promised to restrict eligibility to the scheme. While many of these accounts are anonymous, some are more out in the open. Online conservatives such as Connor Tomlinson and Steven Edington have boasted of how their work has helped move Reform to the right.

[...]

This offers only a snapshot of discussions on social media and cannot account for the wider political and socioeconomic factors influencing these shifts. It does, however, demonstrate how narratives in far-right and fringe online ecosystems can migrate into more mainstream discourse over time and help shape the norms and policies of whole political movements. It is difficult to imagine this happening without the new role of X under Elon Musk. With far-right figures now allowed back onto the platform, and the liberalisation of its algorithms to push more extreme content, the result has been the amplification and normalisation of more radical views and rhetoric. Researchers have highlighted how, as a result of this, social media begins to function like a funhouse mirror, distorting political reality. Because online debate is dominated by a small number of extreme voices (10% of users produce 97% of political content), it projects a skewed and unrepresentative picture of public opinion. This, in turn, blurs users’ sense of which norms and views are mainstream. The fact that offline, the majority is said to oppose the retrospective removal of indefinite leave to remain, only adds weight to the argument that Reform’s policy shifts are being driven by a small number of influential online voices rather than the voices of the masses.

And why it matters in today's politics

I hate making this post because I've made several posts about the Overton Window and why that makes Trump such a threat since the first Trump presidency, and I feel like no one is listening to me.

But recently with leftists being like "I cannot believe I'm agreeing with Tucker Carlson." And with the recent Jubilee surrounded where you have Medhi Hasan "debate" 20 "far right" Republicans you have people saying "That's not the far right! That's just a fascist!"

That...

All of that is the Overton Window at work.

Trump and his people are pushing ideas more and more to the right by pushing things that might just border the "acceptable" zone. And Democrats being the party of "compromise have always met in the middle with zero attempt to push it back. Which has effectively pushed the Window more abs more right.

20 years ago? Shit like what they're saying now openly? On public stages in front of large crowds? Would have been reserved for hushed tones behind closed doors. That was in the "radical" zone. Maybe they'd say it openly if they thought they were in a group of "like minded people", or they would have heavily eluded to it without saying it outright.

"Oh... people like them..."

But they wouldn't say it outright. Blatantly. Loudly. Publicly. On a world stage. Like that. But these days? Blatantly antisemitic, racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic, etc ideology is quickly sliding into the "acceptable" zone.

Shit, Musk did a Nazi salut TWICE on a world stage and not a single fucking News article would call it like it is. Trump made jokes about "grab them by the pussy" and MAGA women THOUGHT THAT WAS FUNNY.

You can see it shifting in real time, actually. When Trump says something and his supporters try to defend it. It starts "He didn't say that!" Because that would be unacceptable. And ends with "If he did, I don't care!" Because all the sudden it's acceptable. It happens so fucking much there's memes about it.

So yeah... that is our "far right" now is nationalist fascist.

Tucker Carlson is a Republican. And a shitty person. Do not get me wrong. But the fact that what he's saying is starting to be seen as "progressive" in my mind indicates that the Overton Window has shifted so far right, that he's popped back out on the other side to the LEFT of the Overton Window on the political spectrum.

Which should CONCERN you. Because he's the guy that's talking about "It's wrong that WW2 taught us that we shouldn't have a Christian Nation." guy (Yup, he's currently saying that.) And he's STILL too progressive for MAGA era politics for saying *checks notes*. He wants us to release the Epstein files, stop sending war funding to Israel, and start helping the American worker. Astounding that ideas like that are somehow "radical" views in 2025.

So yeah. Next time you're wondering why you're agreeing with people that were once considered "radical republicans" or you're wondering when the "far right" movement turned to extremists?

The MAGA movement has done really well at normalizing oppressive policies the last... decade, and the democrats have done little to stop it with their constant compromising.

I'm not offering a solution. I'm not trying to fear monger. I'm not saying the United States is ending as we know it.

I'm just telling you what I've been telling you.

Trump has been continuously pushing what we as a society view as acceptable, and you should be aware, if not concerned.