What the heck is the Overton Window, and how can we use it to advance progressive goals?

Hi everyone, before we get started, our friends at the National Council of Nonprofits are sounding the alarm about the Republicans’ proposed tax bill, which the hope to pass by summer. If it passes, it will be very bad for our sector and the people we serve. It includes allowing authority for Trump and his minions to revoke nonprofit status from any organization it doesn’t like, expand taxes on private foundations to make up for tax cuts on the corporations and wealthy individuals, cut funding for Medicaid and SNAP, among other horrible things. Please see NCN’s website for more information and actions we need to be taking. Let’s get ready for this battle.

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Over the past few months, you’ve probably heard the term Overton Window being tossed around. It’s a term coined by Joseph P. Overton, senior VP of the conservative think tank the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. I recommend this really great 7-minute clip on it, but basically it’s the range of ideas and policies that are politically acceptable to the general population at any given time. For instance, a few decades ago, marriage equality was unthinkable, and even popular Democratic presidents still opposed it. Now, the Window has widened to include LGBTQ rights so it’s not too controversial for politicians, even conservative ones, to say they support it.

I’m bringing it up because the right-wing, under Trump, has been masterful at shifting this Window on a variety of issues, to terrifying results. They propose a steady stream of abhorrent ideas, which then makes less loathsome ones seem reasonable by comparison. For instance, when they talk about sending US citizens to concentration camps in El Salvador without due process, it trains the public to think that sending non-US citizens to these camps without due process less horrifying in comparison (when it absolutely is still very horrifying).

In our sector, we’ve been seeing the window shift as well, and not in good ways. Recently, for example, we contended with the executive order to freeze all federal funds to nonprofit organizations (stopped by lawsuits filed by NCN and Democracy Forward), as well as HR9495, which would have allowed Trump to declare any nonprofit a terrorist organization. While those things were beaten back, they helped shift the Overton Window, so that “lesser” attacks on nonprofits are now acceptable by the public.

So, we need to be aware of these tactics and not fall into these traps (such as bothsiding). We must be vigilant and prevent ourselves and the public from getting used to horrible things because the right-wing keeps proposing the absolute bottom-of-the barrel unthinkable and dangerous garbage.

But also, as a sector that works to advance equity and justice, we need to understand and figure out strategies to shift the Overton Window ourselves to get the public more used to progressive ideas and policies. We can do that by constantly pushing for things like:  

• Make it impossible to be a billionaire. 100% tax rate on anything earned after 999M.
• Grant mountains, rivers, forests, and other natural entities status and rights as individuals (if we’re ok treating corporations like people, why not a rainforest?)
• Nationalize and phase out fossil fuel companies.
• Ban private car ownership in cities in favor of clean, free public transportation
• Abolish all prisons and all police completely and replace them with community-led accountability systems.  
• Require all companies of certain sizes to be worker-owned through co-op like models
• Grant everyone a share in public wealth: Universal Basic Assets (UBA), not just Universal Basic Income
• Make housing a guaranteed human right
• Return all land to Indigenous communities
• Make reparations to Black communities

And while we’re at it, let’s repair our pollical system as well:

• Abolish the electoral college and ensure each vote weighs the same
• Change the US Senate to be proportional representation instead of 2 Senators per state
• Expand the US Supreme Court to 13 Justices, one for each federal judicial circuit. Enact term limits.
• Make Ranked-Choice Voting the default system nationwide
• Establish an age limit for running for political office, and lower the age minimum to 18
• Eliminate private campaign contributions and PACs entirely by making 100% of election financing public

These things will make free college tuition, socialized healthcare, defunding the police, universal basic income, and automatic voter registration seem tame and acceptable and pave the way for the other “extreme” ideas to take hold within the public consciousness.

In our sector, we can also think about actions we can take to expand the Overton Window that’s relevant to our work. For example:

• Require 25% minimum annual foundation payout rate instead of 5%
• Abolish Donor-Advised Funds, or require them to disburse 100% within one year
• Force Foundations to sunset within 10 years of founding
• Require foundation boards to have at least 50% be from people from the community
• Cap the salaries of foundation staff so no staff makes more than three times what their average grantee is making

If you read this list and shook your head, thinking they’re not realistic, that’s the whole point. They don’t have to be. (And for the record, I don’t think they’re extreme in the least!) The more we talk about and push for these ideas, the more the public will get used to them, and the more likely they are to accept “less extreme” versions of them.

That’s what the right-wing has done so well, and it’s gotten society to a very bad place where some of the worst ideas, things that would have been shocking and scandalous to even mention twenty years ago, are now normalized, including very scary things like suspending habeas corpus. They have mastered the art of weaponizing extremism to shift what the public would accept.

Those of us who believe in a just and equitable society and who are working towards it need to learn to identity these tactics and use them ourselves—not just to counter the right-wing’s push towards a dystopian, fascist nightmare, but also to build the bright and awesome future we want to see.