azspot:

For years, bloggers and activists like Black in the online progressive movement have been fascinated with something called the Overton Window, a theory of how ideas enter the political mainstream and eventually become policy. The theory was coined by the libertarian thinker Joseph Overton, who argued that the public can only countenance a fairly narrow “window” of acceptable views on a given subject at a given time. Politicians, in order to be seen as viable, generally have to endorse views within that narrow range. However, savvy members of a political movement can work to move the Overton Window. By endorsing proposals that split the distance between views that are inside the window and the movement’s ultimate goal, activists can gradually drag the window toward their desired end position. To change policy, the idea goes, you change the political environment.

For the past several years, the right has been especially skillful at moving parts of its agenda into the public consciousness and onto the law books this way. For example, instead of pushing for an outright ban on abortion—an ultimate goal that many GOP leaders endorse—Republican state legislatures have passed things like parental notification requirements, or partial bans on abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, or targeted regulation of abortion providers (known as TRAP laws) to restrict access. Sometimes the legislators overreach, and a proposal that falls too far outside the Overton Window gets promoted—like the Virginia GOP’s politically disastrous attempt to force abortion-seekers to endure a transvaginal ultrasound. But even such blunders can move the window in the desired direction, by making other, more “moderate” ways of restricting abortion access seem more palatable.

American liberal groups, by contrast, have arguably lost their feel for setting out a vision and moving the country towards it. According to Representative Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat of Arizona and a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, liberals have spent too much time trying to protect what remains of the social safety net, becoming dangerously accustomed to mobilizing in opposition. “When you’ve been at the barricades for the last decade, it’s hard to get on offense,” he said. Where Social Security is concerned, this has meant fighting tooth and nail to defend the existing meager benefit, even though it isn’t sufficient to forestall the looming retirement crisis.