How the Overton Window Explains Normalizing Extremism Right Before Our Eyes

No-fault divorce bans, birth control panic, abortion criminalization - it’s all part of a calculated effort to shift what’s considered ‘normal.’

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I was stopped in my scroll yesterday by this post from conservative influencer Alex Clark.

Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this kind of extremist rhetoric about jailing women. But it’s a potent weapon when wielded by someone like Alex, someone who is gaining cultural clout on social media with mainstream audiences on a regular basis.

Alex has been at the tip of the spear in the right’s culture war on reproductive rights for years. Particularly in moving the conversation around birth control into something that is unhealthy for women.

Historically, the anti-choice movement has had incredible message discipline in how they talked about punishments for abortion. The mainstream argument has been that doctors will face the punishment, not women.

“I used to be pro-life and you would never hear pro-lifers advocating for charging women with murder, maybe the very fringe of the abolition movement but that’s it,” one formerly pro-life follower messaged me. “It’s just so harsh that the Catholic Conference testified against it.”

Earlier this month North Dakota lawmakers began weighing whether to allow women who obtain abortions to be charged with murder.

The rhetoric has shifted from doctors being punished to the actual mothers being charged with murder; and this isn’t just happening in soundbites, it is also happening in legislation.

From the North Dakota Monitor:

House Bill 1373, referred to as a “personhood bill,” would define a human being to include an unborn child in state laws relating to murder, assault and wrongful death lawsuits. The bill would also establish that an unborn child exists at the moment of fertilization.

The bill is so extreme that:

Chris Dodson, general counsel and co-director of the North Dakota Catholic Conference, also spoke against the bill.

The North Dakota Catholic Conference opposes abortion, but does not believe in punishing women who seek them, he said.

He also called the proposal “obviously unconstitutional” and “ultimately pointless.”

And yet, the concept of jailing women for getting an abortion is quickly becoming more and more mainstream and is a great example of how the right is shifting the Overton Window as we watch.

Most ideological shifts take time to marinate and then slowly move in a new direction. Right now they are happening faster than ever because of the speed of digital communication and the truncation of the news cycles.

Trump’s number one henchman Elon Musk knows exactly how this works. Back in October Musk tweeted this explainer about the Overton Window:

The administration and the entire right wing are currently moving the Overton Window of ideas as quickly as possible, giving us all whiplash in the process.

The Overton window explains how extreme political ideas become policy. How things we never thought possible suddenly get to the President’s desk for signature.

The concept is fairly basic.

Joseph Overton is the political theorist who created the concept. The window of acceptable discourse moves the more we talk about things. They become ‘normalized.’ It’s not just about how ideas go from absolutely wild to totally normal, but how those very conversations are reflected in our policies. Yesterday's radical notion might become tomorrow's common sense that Congress considers actionable.

Trump and the current leaders of the Republican party are pushing the Overton window on many fronts to make their outlandish policies become more mainstream. By repeatedly discussing these ideas, they gradually move public perception and make previously radical concepts seem more acceptable. And talking about something at its most extreme, for example tradwives pledging complete submission to their husbands, pulls the Overton window along. The goal isn’t to push it all the way to repealing the 19th amendment, it’s about just getting rid of no-fault divorce.

The right understands that if they introduce extreme positions, their slightly less extreme positions start to seem “reasonable” in comparison. The rise of “no-fault divorce bans” and outright calls for patriarchy make ideas like “women should stay home for their own good and ask their husband before they leave the house” seem moderate in comparison.

For the past fifty years the Overton Window has been shifting away from MAGA’s vision of what makes America great.

For example, ideas like marriage equality were once outside the Overton window but gradually moved inside as societal attitudes changed. And this was recognized in the Obergefell Supreme Court decision.

In the 1980s-90s strict criminalization of marijuana was the norm and then through the 2010s and into the 2020s there has been a growing acceptance of medical and recreational use. Multiple states and countries have now legalized cannabis

These examples show how societal attitudes and discourse can dramatically change over time and influence policy.

Most of these ideas took decades to shift. The Trump administration and the right are moving things incredibly fast. They do it by:

1. Desensitizing the public: Trump introduces outrageous things so frequently that they stop feeling shocking. And then he uses the vast right wing media ecosystem to repeat and reinforce those messages over and over again. For instance when Trump proposes Canada becoming the 51st state, maybe taking over control of Greenland doesn't seem as bananas.

2. Forcing debates over issues that shouldn’t be up for debate: Whether we are talking about election denial, or attacks on trans human rights, when settled cultural norms are treated as “just another political position,” it moves the window on things that shouldn’t even be up for movement.

3. Gradually expanding the boundaries of what's considered acceptable: By consistently pushing forward his own business interests, Musk's firings, and massive executive overreach, even if the courts push back 90% of what he’s done, Trump will have changed the conversation around how close a President should be to a king. As the New York Times wrote this week: “Norms recognized for decades in Washington by both parties no longer appear to apply to the Trump White House, former prosecutors and ethics lawyers say.”

4. Punishing deviation within their own ranks: The right is punitive and engages in ideological discipline. When John Cornyn supported common sense gun reform, he was censured by the Texas Republican party. This ensures that the politicians and media figures on their side toe the party line and move the Overton window in the direction they want.

We are all being influenced by the public discourse all the time, without even knowing it. Ever had a baby name that you loved that you thought was really obscure, only to find out it was on the top baby names list the following year? You subconsciously saw that name dozens of times and didn’t even realize it.

Our opinions are shaped by cues from media and political elites. When mainstream figures treat previously extreme ideas as normal, public perception can shift.

A politician’s main incentive is to do what needs to be done to win their next election. This is a process that has become deeply warped by money and gerrymandering and more, but it is at its core a reflection of democracy. The values of their voters are translated into policy proposals that get voted on. When public perception about issues change, the ability for Congress to push forward those extreme policies becomes realized.

And public perception is changing faster than ever.

I’ve written a lot recently about how right wing women are fighting the culture war - but another way to put it is they are pushing to shift the Overton window on the policy issues the feminist movement has been fighting for like access to reproductive rights, the ability to file a no-fault divorce, equal pay for women and affordable childcare.

The right and their glossy culture warriors are normalizing extreme positions by packaging them in gorgeous lifestyle content. Instead of leading with policy, they embed their views in lifestyle and wellness.

For example, the MAHA warriors didn’t focus their discourse on deregulation and privatization of America’s healthcare. They focused on making life ‘healthier’ for kids. This is going to be the same messaging framework that this administration is using on SSRIs…but more on that later this week.

Once an audience is comfortable with these basic shifts, outright regressive policies become easier to accept.

Back to Alex Clark for a minute. She regularly helms massive events of young women that push her extreme political agendas. Last year Alex Clark said that the most important thing about the Young Women’s Leadership conference she helmed was that she convinced women to go off birth control. Leading up to the event their socials were sprinkled with beautiful hand drawn pastoral scenes calling on the attendees to “embrace tradition.”

This is a re-framing of radicalism to make it look moderate. And conservatives don’t just introduce ideas once, they repeat them endlessly across multiple platforms until they start to feel like common sense.

This is happening on so many fronts right now that I know it is overwhelming.

So how can we shift the Overton window? The good news is that we have more power than ever. All of us are cultural and political influencers in our own right. By sharing our views and our values on social media we are continuing to influence our circles and beyond. Cultural changes happen at the massive media level, but also at the grassroots level. So even if you feel like it isn’t your place to be posting political information, know that it absolutely is your place.

We can also take a page out of the right’s playbook by posting lifestyle content that shows how the left’s policies supporting women lift us up and give us a joyful life. Affordable childcare allows women the option to work inside or outside of the home while providing enriching care for children. There can be joy in both work and childrearing and one does not have to cancel out the other.

Easily accessible healthcare that isn’t tied to a corporate job allows more people to follow their passions and dreams in the gig economy.

Share the policies that elevate your life and bring you joy instead of just railing against the ones that make life more difficult.

You can also shift the Overton window within your community much more easily than you can shift it within the country. I like thinking about the smaller scale Overton windows. Think about how book banning has become more and more normalized by school and library boards. This is something we can all fight back against in our communities. Banning books should not be normal and we need to speak out about it.

Get more men on your local PTA. One dad as a class parent is often contagious in a community.

Let’s share our successes, the ones that are largely due to having a progressive government that cares for its citizens as often as we fight against the absurd policies being thrown at us on a daily basis.