Closing the tabs ...
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I think that they are more prepared. I think that Stephen Miller, who is his policy chief, Jonathan Swan and Charlie Savage and David Fahrenthold might just wrote a big story about how much expansive power he has now. This is going to look very different.
Stephen Miller is the one person who really learned both in the White House last time and in the four years since. And so I do think that they are going to move faster and likely more effectively. Do I think it will necessarily hit the goals that Trump talked about?
Possibly not. But I do think that the Overton Window has shifted specifically on immigration. I think on tariffs to some extent, too. So what the public is willing to tolerate on this is very different than in, say, 2017.
Ed: Tony Katz and I discussed the Overton Window issue yesterday on his radio show; I've embedded the audio below at the end. The key here is not Trump, by the way; Trump got elected because the electorate had already moved the Overton Window, and the elites either ignored it or weren't paying attention. Or both.
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CNN just showed polling that has public support for deporting ALL illegals above 55% — from left wing pollsters.
— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) January 22, 2025
It’s up TWENTY points since 2016.
This is just incredible. This second term is going to go so smoothly. pic.twitter.com/8z8QsE0jdf
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Democrats have really run themselves into the ground on this issue. They are so far out of step with mainstream public opinion it’s laughable.
For those arguing we should leave violent felons roaming the streets, your political support from the voting public is near zero. Even CNN is aghast that the Overton Window on mass deportation has moved decisively and decidedly toward Trump’s position[.]
Ed: And for that, the media can thank Joe Biden and his massive catastrophic failure to control the borders and stop illegal immigration. That kind of failure is a catalyst for change.
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Ratcliffe is a great example of the Trump nominee overton window shift. His nomination to lead CIA just advanced, 72-26 with a bunch of Democratic supporters
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) January 23, 2025
It was 49-44 five years ago for DNI. Even Manchin voted no! https://t.co/zQUpbp0LQ2
Ed: That is in large part because Ratclffe acquitted himself so well in his stint at ODNI too. But it was also because the Democrats were still all-in on the "Trump is a Russian asset" smear.
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~25 years ago, when in interned for one of the most conservative subcommittees in the House, they wouldn’t touch affirmative action with a ten foot pole - off limits. At the time, I was tasked with looking for OSHA regs that weren’t tied to safety. The Overton Window has moved. https://t.co/QXk68oRN8l
— Danny (@QuidamVeritas) January 22, 2025
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As disturbing as these examples are, we should not conclude the media have become stenographers. The New York Times editorial board just lambasted Trump’s pardons for the January 6 insurrectionists, and Harris’s Politico ran a smart column warning about the likelihood the pardoned insurrectionists will commit violent crimes anew.
Even The Wall Street Journal editorial board was hopping mad at Trump’s brazen disregard of the rule of law, although the target of their ire was the executive order keeping TikTok in business. In words designed to hit Trump where it hurts, the Journal dubbed the order a form of “illegal amnesty,” which signals that Trump “puts pleasing China’s Xi Jinping above a law passed by Congress.”
The Fourth Estate isn’t dead. But the media’s Overton Window has shifted toward Trump deference to the point where oligarchy is welcomed, and history is rewritten to justify its arrival.
Ed: Naaah. The problem here is that the establishment media has burned its credibility to ashes, especially in shrieking over Donald Trump, and pretending that the status quo under Biden was The New Norm in America. Biden left office as one of the most unpopular presidents of all time, whose trust numbers ranked only incrementally higher than those of the media. The Fourth Estate may not be fully dead, but its influence is, and Washington Monthly can't grasp that -- or won't admit it.
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not even close
— Michael Malice (@michaelmalice) January 23, 2025
the assault on LBJ's EO and Affirmative Action wasn't part of the overton window in 2024 https://t.co/mK5lRwLDaP
Ed: It sure was among the people who elected Donald Trump. No one else paid attention to it, especially the mainstream media that used to control the Overton Window. And perhaps especially the censors within the Biden administration that imposed their view of the Overton Window on social media platforms with the assurance that it meant the end of opposition to progressive policies and assumptions.
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The crypto craze is sweeping the general public as observers said President-elect Donald Trump's decision to debut a memecoin has flipped the Overton window, bringing digital assets to the mainstream.
Google Trends, a widely used tool to gauge general or retail interest in trending topics, is currently returning a value of 100 for the worldwide search query "how to buy crypto." The final figure for the week will be confirmed Saturday.
Ed: Hey, not every idea inside the Overton Window is wise or beneficial. But ideas are worth discussing and debating, and crypto is a topic that needs a healthy discussion. And we should want a wide Overton Window, and fight back against attempts to narrow it -- especially via top-down authoritarian measures.
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