5 ms·

Sure, it's called the Overton Window, and it moves over time. Generally speaking in America it has moved leftward continually since the American Revolution, wh

Sure, it's called the Overton Window, and it moves over time. Generally speaking in America it has moved leftward continually since the American Revolution, which was a left-wing act of protest against a monarchical government (which, on a flatness <--> hierarchy view of the left/right axis, is among the furthest right political systems possible). Each successive major shift in American politics has been a shift towards the left in some way (more egalitarian/equalizing policies, more erosion of authoritative positions on social policies, etc). Conquest's Second Law is in effect! At any one time, the "center" is just the point of acceptable shared discourse between the organizations that control the 'poles' at the left and right extents of common discussion; anything past those poles is considered "extreme". For example, during our lifetimes, discussion of a topic like Gay Marriage has gone from being an extreme leftist social policy you couldn't discuss with people in polite company, to being a hot topic of common debate that even Obama said he would not legalize, to becoming official policy, and then even being accepted by the Republican Party as simply the law of the land and not a subject for discussion any more, pushing the topic as far to the right now as it was to the left 30 years ago. (I hold no judgement on the topic here, merely using it as an example for how the window of what is socially acceptable can shift, and the "center" shifts with it.)

r00fus 6y ago
Mostly correct - however, the period after the Civil War moved the country distinctly back towards the right. Chinese Exclusion Act, among others, would not have been considered mainstream in the early 1800s. This continued well into the 1900s - which is when all the confederate hero statues were built (mostly by private funding). Many are being removed now. In this case it's possible the Overton Window may finally be shifting back leftward on race and history regarding the Civil War.
- core-questions 6y ago
  Good points. I'm not American so my history of that era is spread pretty thin. > it's possible the Overton Window may finally be shifting back leftward on race and history regarding the Civil War. I think that the 1965 Hart Cellar Immigration Act began a leftward push on that front that has not really experienced meaningful pushback at all beyond a few small groups publicly acknowledging the quietly-held discomfort of a very large segment of the population. Confederate statues and the defense thereof are just one of many small ways in which White Americans have tried to retain some sense of identity as their culture is perhaps irrevocably changed beneath them. Some try to make it all about slavery, but if you actually read what the more erudite examples of these folks think it's much more nuanced than that.
La1n 6y ago
And compared to most other countries the US overton window is still very right on economics and foreign policy. Socialised health care, or economically left wing politics are still not mainstream and acceptable. Anything other than pure capitalism is called socialist, and socialist/communist is a term that can be career death for a politician.
- core-questions 6y ago
  > the US overton window is still very right on economics and foreign policy. Yes! It's amazing. I don't think there will ever be some magical set of axes that allows a really clear quantification of where the US is at. The problem, of course, is that because of the false dichotomy of choices (R vs D) you can't actually vote for foreign policy decisions at all. It's not even a topic of debate, really! Essentially, the USA continues to have a relatively hawkish position, continues to fund under-reported foreign wars (e.g. in Yemen presently), continues to be a destabilizing entity in many ways, often to the benefit of countries more closely allied to the USA (Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc) at the expense of smaller and less powerful nations. It's very confusing, full of misdirections, and impossible for any normal person to follow. Most Americans want fewer foreign wars, I think. Most Americans (surprisingly including a large and growing swathe of the working class right-wing, believe it or not) are open to the idea of social healthcare in one form or another. Large moneyed interests make these efforts impossible to take on politically, though, and whenever public opinion could be useful to influence actions on the issue, you'll see more false dichotomies form, meta-layers of fractally nested infighting designed to make it so people get hung up on stupid things and debate that instead of the real issue (huge lobby groups intent on acting as middlemen in every transaction to wring every last dollar out of people for no benefit to them whatsoever).
heavyset_go 6y ago
> even being accepted by the Republican Party as simply the law of the land and not a subject for discussion any more This is the GOP party platform for 2016 & 2020: > Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society. For that reason, as explained elsewhere in this platform, we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to the states. https://gop.com/platform/renewing-american-values/#Item2 https://gop.com/platform/renewing-american-values/#Item2 > Defending Marriage Against an Activist Judiciary > Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law. We also condemn the Supreme Court’s lawless ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, was a “judicial Putsch” — full of “silly extravagances” — that reduced “the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Storey to the mystical aphorisms of a fortune cookie.” In Obergefell, five unelected lawyers robbed 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Court twisted the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment beyond recognition. To echo Scalia, we dissent. We, therefore, support the appointment of justices and judges who respect the constitutional limits on their power and respect the authority of the states to decide such fundamental social questions. https://gop.com/platform/we-the-people/#Item4 https://gop.com/platform/we-the-people/#Item4
- core-questions 6y ago
  > This is the GOP party platform for 2016 & 2020: Surely you understand the difference between things written in a policy platform and things actually done in practice. There is no GOP rep who is out there stirring anything up on reversing this and despite the words "urging its reversal" there is not and will likely not ever be any action in this direction. I can't really imagine someone following American politics for more than a year and not realizing this. Almost none of the policy white papers these parties and candidates write will ever be implemented, at all. The GOP almost never does anything its base actually wants, in the socially-conservative sense. They just pretend they will, to get votes; the same way the Democrats pretend they're going to do any number of things for their base that never happen. It's just kayfabe, it's just an act to get you to vote and legitimize their power so that they can continue to do whatever is easiest and most expedient for each individual politician and player at any given moment.

r00fus 6y ago

Mostly correct - however, the period after the Civil War moved the country distinctly back towards the right. Chinese Exclusion Act, among others, would not have been considered mainstream in the early 1800s. This continued well into the 1900s - which is when all the confederate hero statues were built (mostly by private funding). Many are being removed now. In this case it's possible the Overton Window may finally be shifting back leftward on race and history regarding the Civil War.

core-questions 6y ago
Good points. I'm not American so my history of that era is spread pretty thin. > it's possible the Overton Window may finally be shifting back leftward on race and history regarding the Civil War. I think that the 1965 Hart Cellar Immigration Act began a leftward push on that front that has not really experienced meaningful pushback at all beyond a few small groups publicly acknowledging the quietly-held discomfort of a very large segment of the population. Confederate statues and the defense thereof are just one of many small ways in which White Americans have tried to retain some sense of identity as their culture is perhaps irrevocably changed beneath them. Some try to make it all about slavery, but if you actually read what the more erudite examples of these folks think it's much more nuanced than that.

La1n 6y ago

And compared to most other countries the US overton window is still very right on economics and foreign policy. Socialised health care, or economically left wing politics are still not mainstream and acceptable. Anything other than pure capitalism is called socialist, and socialist/communist is a term that can be career death for a politician.

core-questions 6y ago
> the US overton window is still very right on economics and foreign policy. Yes! It's amazing. I don't think there will ever be some magical set of axes that allows a really clear quantification of where the US is at. The problem, of course, is that because of the false dichotomy of choices (R vs D) you can't actually vote for foreign policy decisions at all. It's not even a topic of debate, really! Essentially, the USA continues to have a relatively hawkish position, continues to fund under-reported foreign wars (e.g. in Yemen presently), continues to be a destabilizing entity in many ways, often to the benefit of countries more closely allied to the USA (Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc) at the expense of smaller and less powerful nations. It's very confusing, full of misdirections, and impossible for any normal person to follow. Most Americans want fewer foreign wars, I think. Most Americans (surprisingly including a large and growing swathe of the working class right-wing, believe it or not) are open to the idea of social healthcare in one form or another. Large moneyed interests make these efforts impossible to take on politically, though, and whenever public opinion could be useful to influence actions on the issue, you'll see more false dichotomies form, meta-layers of fractally nested infighting designed to make it so people get hung up on stupid things and debate that instead of the real issue (huge lobby groups intent on acting as middlemen in every transaction to wring every last dollar out of people for no benefit to them whatsoever).

heavyset_go 6y ago

> even being accepted by the Republican Party as simply the law of the land and not a subject for discussion any more This is the GOP party platform for 2016 & 2020: > Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society. For that reason, as explained elsewhere in this platform, we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to the states. https://gop.com/platform/renewing-american-values/#Item2 https://gop.com/platform/renewing-american-values/#Item2 > Defending Marriage Against an Activist Judiciary > Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law. We also condemn the Supreme Court’s lawless ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, was a “judicial Putsch” — full of “silly extravagances” — that reduced “the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Storey to the mystical aphorisms of a fortune cookie.” In Obergefell, five unelected lawyers robbed 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Court twisted the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment beyond recognition. To echo Scalia, we dissent. We, therefore, support the appointment of justices and judges who respect the constitutional limits on their power and respect the authority of the states to decide such fundamental social questions. https://gop.com/platform/we-the-people/#Item4 https://gop.com/platform/we-the-people/#Item4

core-questions 6y ago
> This is the GOP party platform for 2016 & 2020: Surely you understand the difference between things written in a policy platform and things actually done in practice. There is no GOP rep who is out there stirring anything up on reversing this and despite the words "urging its reversal" there is not and will likely not ever be any action in this direction. I can't really imagine someone following American politics for more than a year and not realizing this. Almost none of the policy white papers these parties and candidates write will ever be implemented, at all. The GOP almost never does anything its base actually wants, in the socially-conservative sense. They just pretend they will, to get votes; the same way the Democrats pretend they're going to do any number of things for their base that never happen. It's just kayfabe, it's just an act to get you to vote and legitimize their power so that they can continue to do whatever is easiest and most expedient for each individual politician and player at any given moment.