thus the Overton window not only moves -- it shrinks.
No. It moves. There is no comparable noise machine on the left. Until and unless there is, there in nothing to prevent the wingnuts from saying all the nutty things they like. And so the window moves. Of course, it's possible that when the left gets itself a comparable noise machine, the Overton window will genuinely shrink. But right now, I think that's a very minor effect.
It looks like it's shrinking, because we ("we" as in those of us who don't watch Faux News, are not regular readers of Worldnutdaily and don't listen to extreme-right talk radio) only see the part of it that isn't beyond-the-pale insane. So naturally, when the right has gone off a cliff it will look to us like it's shrinking, because we don't consider the notion of - say - nuking Iran so hard it'll look like something out of the Book of Revelations to be within the Overton window at all.
That is another very worrisome trend: Parts of the population - particularly on the right - speak out of both sides of their mouth with a depressing consistency. Now, it's one thing for their politicians to be two-faced, lying scum. That is, after all, what we've been expecting from the right since roundabout Nixon's time. But it is extremely worrying when large parts of the general population adopt doublethink wholesale.
- Jake Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam
sigh. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
This tactic is most obviously in use in the US, where the right has so complete a control of the major media that even otherwise obvious political disasters can be swept under the rug. But I have no doubt that the right in Europe is getting away with saying things to select audiences of extremists that the left would never, ever get away with saying to "our" "extremists."
The major problem with this isn't so much that the right says extremist things to extremist people, at least if that were all that happened. The problem is that by saying those things, the wingnut politicians can establish their credentials with those groups, and draw on them for support both with organisation and at the ballot box. And, of course, that their ability to get away with saying outrageous things means that they can more easily support and promote politicians who believe outrageous things, because a Freudian slip is a lot less likely to come home to roost later.
