A few weeks ago, one of my “reply guys” on twitter pointed out to me that my damnable reliance on facts and reason, on “hard” fixes to actual problems rather than empty platitudes and my moderated refusal to indulge in simplistic hatred of tribal enemies, missed the boat.
He told me, “You’re wrong. We’ve moved the Overton Window* so far left that defunding the police is taken seriously.”
At the time, I didn’t appreciate his message. But after due deliberation, I’ve come to realize he’s got a point. A very good point. It’s no longer limited to a small group of nutjobs screaming for inane radical solutions that no one, no elected official, no business leader, no academic, no one of modest intelligence and a limited capacity for reason, would take seriously.
He was right. A lot of people were now taking seriously, very seriously, notions that no one would have ever considered worthy of discussion a few months before.
And he was right that the things that I said, argued, promoted or discussed, didn’t move the Overton Window to the point where it was so far left that it was in the neighbor’s house. My house was now essentially windowless.
Granted, this doesn’t make the ideas any more rational or even possible. Unrealistic pipe dreams of unicorns prancing on rainbows to solve intransigent problems don’t magically become viable because people are openly talking about them, taking them seriously. They will no more fix what ails us than doubling sentences for drug sale when it finally hits home that the last doubling didn’t do the trick.
But the difference is that pipe dreams under discussion makes it possible to talk about real solutions to real problems that were at the far left of the Overton Window before it slid down the slippery slope. The idea is that discussion about defunding police, defunding prosecutors, eliminating the protections we’ve built to prevent police from being held responsible for their brutal, violent and offensive actions, is all on the table. While the extreme ideas are foolish and will certainly wreak havoc with society, the opportunity now exists for serious, viable and reasonable changes to be made that will not only address the many problems that have permeated the law, the police and the legal system.
So I was wrong. The more radical voices forced the Overton Window to the left and it’s wide open. Now, can more reasonable voices on both sides reach agreement on real reforms to real problems, nuts and bolts issues, that will save the lives of black men (and everyone else) needlessly killed by the cops, who are not all bastards, though some are and most can be when left to their own devices?
It won’t be satisfying to the woke. It won’t provide them with their Utopian vision of a world without police because the rest of us are so loving and kind to each other that they won’t be needed anymore. But it might, just might, enable us to create a far better, sustainable, legal system that does far less harm than before.
If that happens, we will have this shift in the Overton Window to thank, and those who fought to create the threat of absurdly radical notions in order to make sound reforms the better alternative for everyone. But can we now do this, back off the crazy so as to achieve the viable? Or must the pendulum always swing too far one way or the other so that we never find solutions that serve all of us well?
*The Overton Window refers to “the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.”
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To quote the great John McLean: “Welcome to the party, pal.”
I don’t think the fanaticism is mainstream everywhere, although media organizations are certainly trying to create that appearance. Meanwhile, the self-policing experiment of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone appears to be going less than swimmingly. Let some other folks (far away from me) try it out. We’ll see how it works for them. If it does, maybe it will get traction other places. (Early prospects aren’t looking so good).
If it appears to be mainstream, it’s mainstream. If people are secretly thinking otherwise, it doesn’t matter if no one knows about it.
Voting is still by secret ballot. The concept of “the silent majority” is sometimes illustrated by results at the polls. Joe Citizen who is reluctant to become a target of the mob by speaking out may still pull the lever against the defunding candidates as state and local races present the opportunity.
There will be a vote. There will be a result. What that ends up being, we shall see.
This is why I am grateful for Federalism and local control. There is not a single Overton window. It varies by time and also by place. There are many Overton windows, at the federal level, the state level and the municipal level. With regard to police reform, the window has moved dramatically in some locales but not all. I would posit, that in the vast majority of locales, the Overton Window has hardly moved at all. Where I live, in Houston, Texas, there has been nary a peep about defunding the police. In Minneapolis, they shattered the window. My brother lives in Roseville, near Minneapolis. I told him that I was excited to see the results of their proposed reforms. I truly am. On the other hand, I am glad we are not implementing any radical reforms here in Texas.
I hear Kim Ogg has a fight on her hands, and Lina Hidalgo is getting woker by the day.
We will soon be sinking barges filled with political prisoners in the Mississippi river.
The Overton Window is such a simple, useful concept. If people’s attitudes change even slightly we could substantial electoral impacts in multi-jurisdictional elections (see Median Voter Theory).
There are many foreseeable outcomes, should voters in the nether reaches of the Overton Window not be satisfied: lower voter participation, ranked choice voting, and the emergence of credible third parties. Two of these are not bad outcomes, on their face.
I’m all for a wider Overton Window. The problem now is that it has moved substantially left and ideas on the right have been denigrated to the point that they may risk not being heard. A loyal opposition is an unalloyed good.
Is there a wider Overton Window or are there two, one right and the other left, and a big solid wall in between where moderate or liberal ideas aren’t tolerated by either side?
At this point BLM has developed into something like a white woke cult. The justification for “defund the police” is the following. Somebody starts questioning this idea but then they get an answer “you have to support this movement but it’s not your position as a white person to question what the black leaders say”.