The Overton Window: How Trump Makes Extreme Things Seem Normal

[Zyler]

[video=youtube;_v-hzc6blGI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v-hzc6blGI[/video]

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window[/url]
[QUOTE]The Overton window, also known as the window of discourse, is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse. The term is derived from its originator, Joseph P. Overton, a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, who in his description of his window claimed that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within the window, rather than on politicians' individual preferences.[1][2] According to Overton's description, his window [b]includes a range of policies considered politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too extreme to gain or keep public office.[/b][/QUOTE]

The theory is that the upper and lower bounds of what is considered to be acceptable discourse changes over time, and by pushing the same (relative to the society's views) radical ideas you can wear people down enough so that things that would've previously been considered unreasonable are considered reasonable by comparison.

It's similiar to a business and marketing tactic where someone makes an outrageous business proposition with the expectation that it will never be accepted, then reflexively replaces the offer with another, less outrageous one that is still disadvantageous to the other party. This is done so that the second offer seems reasonable by comparison and the second party accepts it despite not being something they would have ever accepted otherwise.

This can be compared to how gay marriage gradually became more accepted over time as the extreme notion of it became slowly normalized through the adoption of various types of domestic partnerships and civil unions.

This effect is also knowning as [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)]framing[/url] and it relates to how we, as human beings, understand and make sense of the world around us by constructing mental frameworks of how we think the world works relative to things that happen to us.

[Funktastic Dog]

Clearly the only thing to do now to get it back to normal is to elect a commie

[JohnnyMo]

It was pretty obvious this is what's been going on since the primaries, not just in terms of discourse, but in what's acceptable behavior. After each latest scandal, you could watch the polls regress back to the mean in under a week.