The former vice president of the Mackinac Center, Joseph P. Overton, may have inadvertently poured the foundation for Donald Trump. Overton preached free-markets, less regulation, and limited government. Purportedly Overton and the Mackinac Center avoided social issues, like abortion. Trump throughout his early life as a novice political observer was quietly pro-life, pro-gun control and a contributor to those causes. At the same time, he is an avowed self-dealing capitalist.
Trump has bastardized Overton’s conservatism by feigning religious fervor and mimicking what his flyover country base wants to hear on LGBTQ and abortion rights. First let me say if you mentioned the term Overton Window to Donald Trump, he would think it was the open window used to spy on Synclaire James. As with all things Trump, he converted the theory into something simple. Keeping his ear to the ground and saying what his people will accept from him. Pundits have for too long fallen for the meme that Trump led the party into the basement of discourse, when in reality he just brought the blacklight and spiked punch. Racism and cruelty have existed in the Republican party since their conversion in the sixties. Ronald Reagan gave Conservatives permission to say it, and Trump has given them permission to do it.
‘Everything that traffic will allow…’
In basic terms, a definition of the OW is, “The spectrum of ideas on public policy and social issues considered acceptable by the general public at a given time.” In simpler terms for Trump and his followers, it is apropos to interject a few lines from the song There’sNo Business Like Show Business,
“There's no business like show business like no business I know
Everything about it is appealing, everything that traffic will allow
Nowhere could you get that happy feeling when you are stealing that extra bow”
The Trump presidency has been a way, way off-Broadway show. Poorly lit, filled with simple ineffective dialogue, unsatisfyingly directed and filled with lesser actors. Watching sniff and scratch Republicanism, led by their lead dog Donald Trump, into marking their territory for his whites-only American dream is disturbing. Republicans are willing to accept anything from Trump, do everything Trump says and worst of all be whatever Trump wants them to be. From Lindsey Graham so anxious to kneel before Trump that he would step over the body of his “best friend” John McCain, to Ted Cruz ignoring the fact the President [Trump] called his father an assassin.
With the overused cliché about Democrats falling in love and Republicans falling in line, to this point, Democrats, possibly to their own detriment, have maintained a sense of even-handed justice. Instant justice is not good justice. Al Franken was browbeaten out of office, despite Democrats calling for due process. Former Vice-President Joe Biden is currently answering charges from an accuser, Lucy Flores, former Nevada Assemblywoman. First of all, let me say if a woman says, ‘ I feel uncomfortable’ she is to be taken seriously. There lies the difference in the two parties. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, and other Democratic presidential candidates have said, I believe her, now let us discuss the issue. When women like Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Jessica Leeds accused Judge Kavanaugh and the President, Republicans said, I do not believe it and closed the Window.
Vote in 2020 for Change.