Way Beyond the Overton Window

by Barry Drogin

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It is June 2026, and I've been thinking a lot about how everyone is so confused by the current moment in national and international affairs and what to do about it. To start, we have to have a common vocabulary that personifies intelligent thinking on politics, economics, culture, media, technology, climate, and philosophy. Here is a primer.

Overton Window - Named after analyst Joseph Overton in the early 1990's, also known as the "window of discourse", the window defines what is acceptable speech and what is considered radical or unthinkable. It was originally confined to political discourse.

Why it has been pushed out of public discourse - The media is averse to "platforming" radical discourse and is subject to groupthink.

Political Hobbyism - Back in 2017, Eitan Hersh wrote this essay, which he later expanded into a book, which explained that being politically engaged involves more than voting, signing a petition, or attending a rally, but actually building political organizations with your neighbors so that you are ready to lobby, advocate, and mobilize. In 2026, Charles Duhigg wrote in The New Yorker about how mobilizing without organizing is ineffective in creating real change. In multiple ways, the organizing that grew out of the Minneapolis George Floyd protests in 2020 led to the effectiveness of the Minneapolis anti-ICE campaign in 2025.

Why it has been pushed out of public discourse - Raising money to spend on political campaigns, telling people that they have formed online "communities," keeping people tuned to political talk shows, podcasts, and op eds in newspapers, bolsters the deemphasis on political organizing, even floating the idea that advocates live in "echo chambers" and are out of touch with political discourse.

On Tyranny - Published in 2017, Timothy Snyder wrote this book which listed twenty lessons on how to recognize and stop the rise of fascism (summarized in this card). Snyder continues to analyze current events, publish his thoughts, and conduct interviews on his substack.

Why it has been pushed out of public discourse - Snyder leans a little too hard on Nazi Germany in his text, and even terms like "anti-fascist" have been neutralized into "antifa," while debates on whether what is happening can be labeled "fascism" distract from "acceptable" public discourse.

On Bullshit - This 20-page 1986 essay by Harry G. Frankfurt, expanded into a 96-page 2005 book, explains the difference between lying and bullshit. When used as a tool of propaganda, Hannah Arendt explained in an often misquoted 1973 interview, "If everybody lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer."

Why it has been pushed out of public discourse - It was only recently, when Donald Trump actually used the word "bullshit" in a speech, that The New York Times deigned it acceptable to print the word. Lying and fact-checking are considered "polite," calling "bullshit" bullshit is considered impolite and unacceptable in public discourse.
Heterodoxy - In 2015, Jonathan Haidt, Chris Martin, and Nicholas Rosenkranz founded the Heterodox Academy (HxA). This grew out of work in the development of Moral Foundations Theory. Haidt lists 10 causes of American political polarization and dysfunction starting in 1964, and points to two studies that show how liberals and conservatives rate five values: care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. A graph from the initial study, cited in The Righteous Mind, can be found here, the latter can be found here.
Why it has been pushed out of public discourse - There is a general failure to understand that only a third of eligible American voters voted for Donald Trump, a third voted for Kamala Harris, and a third did not vote in the 2024 presidential election. A growing segment of the American voters are independent (although they tend to lean Democrat or lean Republican). That Americans actually share all five values, they just prioritize them differently, is outside of the discourse. The media prefers polls, elections as horse races, and promoting "civil war."

Neo-Royalism - In 2025, Stacie Goddard and Abraham Newman coined the term "Neo-Royalism" in a short paper published by Cambridge University Press which posits that the Trump administration is not abandoning the Liberal International Order for a "Westphalian" sovereigntist power system, but for a hyper-elite exceptionalist clique system that requires financial and cultural tributes.

Why it has been pushed out of public discourse - Most political pundits are so obsessed with "democracy" and "power" that they are unable to absorb this new framing.

Climate Weirdness - First coined by agronomist Jochum Wiersma in 2021, perhaps as a spin on "global weirding" coined by environmentalist Hunter Lovins and cited by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times in 2007. As coinages go, it seems to have more resonance and accuracy than "global warming" or "climate change."

Why it has been pushed out of public discourse - Energy companies have used the marketing tactics used by big tobacco to shift conversations away from energy consumption and extreme weather disasters. If anything, the massive energy requirements of blockchain technology, large language models, and quantum computing are ignored or only mentioned in passing.

Flygskam - Swedish for "flight shame," coined in 2017 by singer Staffan Lindberg and popularized by Greta Thunberg, among others. It relates to "Tågskryt," which means "train brag." For an individual, living car-free and avoiding transatlantic flights are the two most effective ways of reducing your carbon footprint. As a society, frequent flyers are responsible for most carbon emissions from air flight.

Why it has been pushed out of public discourse - Both tourism (and "eco-tourism") are promoted as leisure pursuits and economic drivers. During holiday seasons, the emphasis is on air travel records, and carbon emission estimates are never even calculated.

Dual State - Originally coined by German Ernst Fraenkel as Urdoppelstadt prior to 1938, fleshed out in 1940, first published as the title of a book in English in 1941, and then republished in German in 1974. Fraenkel calls the government's treatment of those without legal protection as the "Prerogative State" and those with legal protection as the "Normative State." Fraenkel's work was cited by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in June 2025 in her dissent on Trump v. Casa (which enjoined federal judges from issuing "universal injunctions" on anything but class action lawsuits). Its application to far too many groups in the United States during the second Trump presidency - the trans community (and others who are LGBTQIA), undocumented citizens, BIPOC, those protesting the war in Israel (and now in Lebanon and Iran), those voting for Democrats (in blue, purple, and red states), etc., etc. - is growing day by day.

Why it has been pushed out of public discourse - Because of its origins in describing Nazi Germany and the rise of fascism, it is considered extreme to draw parallels between the US and Hitler's regime (see "On Tyranny").

Enshittification - First coined by Cory Doctorow in 2022 to describe Amazon (and repeated in Wired in 2023 to describe TikTok and expanded into a 2025 book), the term is used to describe how online platforms attract users, then serve business customers, then use their monopoly power to serve their shareholders.

Why it has been pushed out of public discourse - Unions have been demonized since the Reagan era. The great libertarian push to undo the FDR push towards socialization and anti-monopoly enforcement has been replaced with economic coverage of Mergers & Acquisitions, not consumer protection.

Reality - In her 2017 book, "The Trouble With Reality," Brooke Gladstone, co-host of On The Media, contrasts umwelt, individual reality (literally, "self-centered world"), from umgebung, bigger reality (literally, "surroundings"). It reminds me of the Wallace Shawn character in "The Princess Bride" who keeps saying how "inconceivable" everything that happens is.

Why is has been pushed out of public discourse - Because On The Media is media criticism, and media outlets are less interested in ombudsmen and media critics than in attracting eyeballs and advertisers. Some of the content of this piece are distillations of On The Media episodes:

Other sources:

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Last Updated: June 23, 2026