The Overton Window and Glenn Beck:Pot. Kettle. Black.

I have previously blogged about the Overton Window, which describes the boundaries of public discourse and offers a rhetorical technique in which think tanks, pundits, talking heads, and hired advocates can shift the range of acceptable public discussion by communicating radical, extreme perspectives that make their client's objective seem relatively normal.

In a world where the cost of being a publisher approaches zero, the Overton Window is increasingly available to a wider sphere, and all sorts of people are getting in to it. Of course, if radical, extreme perspectives are exerted on both sides of the spectrum, the central window remains in the same place while the tone of the discourse moves outside of the traditionally acceptable range.

I have enjoyed knowing about the Overton Window because it helps me to understand the rhetoric of American discussion (on both/many sides of the aisle) and also because, frankly, it's a niche knowledge and it's kind of cool to be in on the story. It's sort of like the Sullivan Nod - once you know about it you see it all around, and it's not widely known.

The phrase Overton Window is about to have its fifteen minutes of fame, as it is the title of Glenn Beck's new collection of words (to call it a novel is to condemn authors everywhere).

(Also, allow me to point out that there is no link to Beck's product on this blog; you'll have to search for the sordid tome yourself. No help here.)

Glenn Beck, a huckster, shill, and entertainer of a quality perhaps not seen since Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker left the public spectrum, is certainly a practitioner of the Overton Window within his audience - his polemics and phillipics make almost anything else seem reasonable.

The problem with Beck's use of the Overton Window is that the technique is only profitable if you're communicating to the full audience - in other words, it only works if his proposals and utterances are widely conveyed to the people who disagree with him. If a practitioner uses the Overton technique exclusively with the people who already agree with their agenda, all that results is increased polarization, radicalization, and fanaticism.

There's a reason we use "preaching to the choir" as a pejorative phrase.

• It increases identification.
• It suggests alignment.
• It doesn't change the real-world situation.
• It eventually turns the choir into militants and harridans.

Here's the problem, visually. You have a single population (the United States) drawn in red, and the Overton Window of acceptable public discourse shown in grey. The objective of the (marketer, consultant, propagandist) is to get the peak to skew to the right/left by delivering relatively extreme messages on that side of the spectrum, having the effect of making the desired change seem reasonable.


But if the (marketers, consultants, propagandists) of both sides only speak to their own consituency, the one population splits into two populations, which each skew according to their preferences. As the two distributions diverge, the average remains the same, and the Overton Window stays in place, but very few people are in it - most people move outside of the range of civic discourse.


It's wonderful that the Overton concept is going to gain awareness among the American public. It's awful that it's going to be explained to some by this hack's spin. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which carries on Joe Overton's work, is going to use the notoriety as an opportunity to improve the public's understanding of the concept.

See also:
Daily Kos
Open The Future : The Overton Window
EJ Dionne: Rush and Newt Are Moving the Window
israel's Overton Window
Overton, Clinton, and Krugman
Intro to the Overton Window
Overton Window, Bush's Apostasy & Wizard's Complaint
Overton Windows at Mercury Rising
Theocracy and the Religious Overton Window
Daily Kos: More on Overton Windows
Richard Dawkins and a non-linear Overton Window

Robert Poole, Kathryn Wylde, NextGen ATC and the Overton Window

Robert Poole is a rhetorician for the Reason Foundation, a think tank loved supported paid for by the Reagan-Bush-Red-State side of the aisle. (Their Clinton-Obama opposite is the Center for American Progress.) Robert Poole's expertise is in surface transportation issues. He has been making bold claims about reinventing Air Traffic Control. He makes arguments that anybody with a bit of ATC experience will recognize as flights of fantasy.

Mr. Poole has seemed (to me) to be a harmless shill for the aviation-military-industrial complex, the people who build airplanes and satellites and rockets. He's sort of the Baghdad Bob of Boeing ATC. He pitches new technologies that will replace the (nominally) aging, creaking air traffic control system and set the planes and passengers free of the backwards, outdated technology that’s been holding us all back.

Robert Poole is an idiot if he thinks that this new package, marketed as - wait for it, wait for it - NextGen is going to deliver the promised benefits. However, I think he’s quite smart, and I think he's an artful mover of the Overton Window. Throughout the Bush years, Poole’s been giving speeches and white papers that advocate for Star Wars satellite-based navigation systems, new computers, and privatizing ATC. He asks, Why is the government in charge of air traffic control? Don’t they screw up everything?

Let’s put private industry (Enron, GM) in charge. First, let's buy a bunch of technology from vendors and contractors. We'll get it all working later. Readers may remember the rhetoric: Government is the problem (see YouTube below), and Starve the Beast (more), etc.



Robert Poole is a useful tool for the airline industry, the avionics industry looking to diversify beyond the military, and the Beltway Bandits that profit from a sliver of everything that happens in DC. Curiously, all the Bush Administration honchos that embraced Poole's proposals are now out of government service - and they've all gone to work for the industry that wants to sell the equipment that Poole is pushing.

I have seen Poole’s work, and I have ignored it because nobody with an operational background could possibly entertain his notions. In June, he wrote about how NextGen would solve New York City's airport delays.

On Monday I saw the results of Robert Poole’s advocacy: on the Huffington Post, Kathryn Wilde blogged about how Robert Poole’s NextGen would solve all the problems of the New York City Airports – and if only we’d prioritize the investment in our future, we’d see the benefit in about twelve years.


And then Wednesday, I saw an article in New York Future Initiative echoing Kathryn Wilde's uninformed speculation. It seems to me like the NextGen marketing program is hitting full stride.

Who is Kathryn Wylde?

Ms. Wylde is not an pilot, not a controller, and not a transportation expert. She is President & CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for New York City. She's also President & CEO of the New York City Investment Fund, the Partnership’s $120 million civic investment fund. Prior to joining the Partnership, Wylde was the Urban Affairs Officer at Anchor Savings Bank (1979-81) and spent 11 years (1968-79) in various positions at Lutheran Medical Center.

She's a cheerleader of the Chamber of Commerce and certain financial interests. She’s a finance type, a fund developer, a schmoozer and hob-nobber who plays with other people’s money. There's nothing wrong with that. However, let's be clear: She is not an aviation expert (but she plays one on the web).

When you go to their website, check the button on the left margin, "GROUNDED: the high cost of Air Traffic Congestion". I like the alliteration that has ATC standing for Congestion; nice touch.

Somehow, this civic financial doyenne is advising the nation on the air traffic control system, and how if we’d only buy the NextGen and the BlackBoxGizmo, all the problems would go away. She has no idea what she’s talking about. Two days later, an article in NYfi was furthering the NextGen message, quoting Kathryn Wylde as an expert.

I ignored Robert Poole because no person who understood the operational issues would believe that he offered a solution for anything other than the industry’s cashflow problem. When I saw that the campaign had moved the discussion and the Overton window enough so that Chamber of Commerce types were confidently spouting his marketing shtick, I felt compelled to object.

I think I have found out what happened to the people who were promising an AeroCar in every carport and a JetPack for every Boy Scout in the 1950's - they're all out selling NextGen ATC now.

Rhetoric, the Golden Mean, and the Overton Window

If I were to go back to school, I think I’d study rhetoric. If by rhetoric you mean the cheap shot, the artful question nobody answers, then I say No sir thank you very much; but if by rhetoric you mean the classic art of persuasive communication, the means for any man to speak and sway the populace, the basis of democracy and civilization – why then, yes sir, that is what I mean by rhetoric.

The Overton Window

I’m probably not going back to school, and if I did I’d probably stay within the field of my previous studies. I do read and ponder rhetoric, just for my own edification and pleasure. I’ve only recently learned of a rhetorical concept called the Overton Window, and I’d like to mention it.


The Overton window suggests that most issues fall along a spectrum, from one extreme to another. Somewhere along that spectrum is a small window, which represents the window of communication (or the range of political possibility) that the public is willing to engage in.



Here's an example of the Overton Window of Political Possibility, or of Acceptable Public Discourse, in a technical field:



So let’s say you work at a think tank, and you have a Client who has a Cause. Their cause is way out of the range of what’s acceptable in public discourse. In fact, the Cause is Unthinkable.

You make a few press releases about Concept-B , of things even more extreme than the cause. You’re setting new boundaries on the spectrum. You’re talking in a way that makes people a little bit nervous. All of a sudden, people are thinking that your ideas (which were once unthinkable) are now simply radical.

You come up with an even crazier concept, Concept-C, and you get some grad students to start protesting and blogging about it. Now, they’ve defined a new extreme. Their Concept-C is Unthinkable, Concept-B is Radical, and your client’s cause is now moving into Acceptable.

You’re feeling pretty good, and you get a think tank to release a truly bizarre proposal, Concept-D. D is unthinkable. Now, Concept-C seems Radical. Concept-B seems Acceptable. The Cause is now Sensible.

The progression continues, and as the window of public discourse moves closer and closer to the Cause, the Cause progresses through being Unthinkable, Radical, Acceptable, Sensible, Popular, and finally: Policy.

Remarkably, you never discussed the Cause with anybody, and you were never publicly aligned with the Cause. You just talked about things much more extreme than the Cause that redefined the spectrum, and the Client’s Cause became Policy.



In a way, this manipulates Aristotle's concept of The Golden Mean. You can shift the mean by adding new data points on one end of the spectrum. You move the middle by piling on progressively extreme positions.

The lists below show an initial state of public discussion about education (with the acceptable range in red), and a subsequent state of discussion about education (with the new, moved Overton Window in red).



I thought Think Tanks were kind of cool places that did the scholarship and theoretical heavy lifting for political parties. Sure, Barney Frank is a charmer, but where does he go for new policy? I assumed he bought it at a think tank that was aligned with his values.

Now I’ve learned that think tanks exist to move the Overton Window, and they do that by floating extreme concepts that shift the framework of what’s acceptable in public discourse. Just like Pat Moynihan wrote about defining deviancy down, think tanks redefine the spectrum of discourse and move the Overton Window to their client’s advantage. WOW.

This technique does not work by contributing concepts to the discussion that the pubilc finds acceptable - rather, this technique works by contributing unacceptable options to the discussion.

Learning about the Overton Window has been enjoyable to me because now I recognize the pattern at work. For instance, now I understand why Charles Rangel kept introducing military draft (that is, conscription) legislation in Congress - he did it in 2003, 2006, and 2009 – it changed the spectrum in a way he found beneficial.

See also:
Daily Kos
Open The Future : The Overton Window
EJ Dionne: Rush and Newt Are Moving the Window
israel's Overton Window
Overton, Clinton, and Krugman
Intro to the Overton Window
Overton Window, Bush's Apostasy & Wizard's Complaint
Overton Windows at Mercury Rising
Theocracy and the Religious Overton Window
Daily Kos: More on Overton Windows
Richard Dawkins and a non-linear Overton Window