The Overton Shift
Alexander Kreitz, Managing Editor
The Overton window, a term coined by Joseph P. Overton, describes the range of acceptable views a culture holds, where within are the beliefs readily allowed by society, and without are those heavily shunned. Over the past three decades, the Overton window of American politics has shifted so suddenly to the political left that the views and beliefs of the common man of the 20th century are in stark opposition to those held today.
The examples of this shift are numerous. Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in America, was once an avid supporter of the Democrat Party and a self-described leftist. Joe Rogan, who runs the massively popular podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” was for most of his life an outspoken socialist who championed the likes of Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America. These men, who are now pillars of modern American culture, have been condemned as “right-wing” by the media establishment due to their support of President Donald Trump and his bid for reelection in 2024.
As for President Trump himself, he is often viewed by the left as a Hitlerian figure. Some progressives even go so far as to claim that he is worse than Hitler, that his is a tyrannical sort that yearns to engulf America in fascist theocracy. This claim is not supported by the facts. President Trump is by far the most moderate Republican ever to be elected to the office of the presidency, as seen in his refusal to sign a national abortion ban, prison reform, and refusal to cut Social Security and Medicare. President Trump, in the 2024 election, scored higher amongst African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American populations than any other Republican candidate in history. His cabinet is staffed by lifelong Democrat Party members and even past political adversaries. And yet, many view him far to the right.
The reason as to why the Overton Window has shifted is no mystery. In fact, this shift has happened many times before, all for the same reason: the revolution against the norm, once enshrined in power, devours its own.
To put plainly how far the Overton window has shifted in past decades, one only must listen to the words spoken by past and present politicians, and how they have changed. Former Democratic President Bill Clinton spoke in his 1996 State of the Union address about the great need for border enforcement. Clinton said, “Our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before... It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws... and we must do more to stop it.”
This political dogma of strong border enforcement is far against the modern view of the Democrat party. During the first Democrat Party primary debate of the 2020 election, NBC moderator José Díaz-Balart asked if illegal entry into the United States should be counted as a civil offense, rather than criminal. To this, the following politicians raised their hands in agreement: Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang, and others.
Criminal aliens are not the only subject that has experienced a great progressive surge. The American view of homosexual marriage and LGBT ideology have moved far to the left as well. During his 2008 presidential campaign, former Democrat President Barack Obama declared that marriage was between man and woman, without exception. “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union.”
Therein lies a great distinction in Obama’s words: there exists marriage, and Christian marriage, both between man and woman alone. However, under his second term, Obama championed the Supreme Court landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges, which declared that it is a given right to engage in so-called “same-sex marriage”.
Whilst these are the views reflected and projected by the Democrat party, they account for the views of a fair portion of the American public, and so as they shift, so too do the denizens of America move their beliefs. How, then, have they shifted so greatly that only ten years of time is needed to pit one’s word against himself? What is the culprit?
The answer lies within the counter-culture revolution of the 1960s, still ongoing, which has now taken control of the institutions of power in the United States.
There exists two species of revolution: a return to the norm, or destruction of the norm. In America, as the semiquincentennial approaches, it is easy to recall the American Revolution, and its strive against tyranny. One may then ask, rightfully, if America was founded on revolution, why then has it existed so long without the shift we see in the modern day?
It is because the American Revolution was a return to the norm of society, not the breaking of it. The revolution championed by the Founding Fathers was against the tyranny of Great Britain, not its foundations of monarchical rule. In fact, the Founding Fathers enshrined the spirit of monarchical rule in the role of the executive office of the presidency. Many Founding Fathers, such as John Adams, wished for the executive to have greater powers, and be even addressed as royalty.
Thomas Jefferson posited best the ideals of the American revolution, that King George III was enthroned in tyranny due to deprivation of the American man’s right to liberty. For there exists a contract between man and his governor, written or unwritten, that dictates what is given and what is taken in order to maintain society. In the United States, this contract is the Constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights. In a righteous society, the governor may not deprive the governed of their right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. Seeing as all three were taken from the Thirteen Colonies under British rule, the American revolution was not against the norm, but rather, a restoration of the rights endowed by man’s Creator.
The counter-culture revolution is much the opposite. At its core, it posited that the institutions of American society were corrupt and rotted out by bigotry, racism, and sexism, and that only a complete demolition could save the denizens of America. This thought has evolved into the modern term “woke”, which means to hold the belief that every facet of government must be overhauled and replaced by whatever ideology the beholder wields.
The revolutions of the 1960s, separate yet unified under a singular belief against tradition that still endure today, are quite similar to the French Revolution, or the October Revolution of Soviet Russia. These destructive fronts require an institution to rebel against. Without an oppressor, they have no purpose, and instead of dissolution and normalization, the revolution always bisects and revolts against its own. This generates a feedback loop of greater progressive ideals, more radical and extreme, until the old revolution is defiled by the new, and soon the cycle begins again. Shifting the Overton window ever further.
A very recent development of this continual revolution is the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America, the subscribers to the ideals of New York City Mayor Zorhan Mamdani, Internet Personality Hassan Piker, and others who champion the allure of communism and terrorism, all to destroy the institutions of America. These include the U.S. House of Representatives candidates Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier of New York, as well as U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, and Mamdani himself.
As much as the Overton window has shifted in recent years, it will not stop, nor hinder, so long as the progressive revolution continues to grow and self-consume. The old establishment of the Democrat Party is on the chopping block, a victim of their own creation. This was demonstrated after the primary victories of several DSA members, where chants rose in New York against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, shouting “You’re next! You’re next!”
For those fond of history, these revolutions against the norm often end in autocracy and tyranny, as seen under Fidel Castro, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong. Whether the American people have already met the future premier of the counter-cultural revolution is unknown, but what can be certain is that so long as the war against traditional American values continues, the Overton Window will continue to move to the left.