Donald Trump and the false shifting of the Overton window

The presumptive GOP nominee has widened the acceptable range of ideas we can talk about in our public life. But it might not last.

Many of Trump's issues could prevail as a referenda.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

It's been a bad few weeks for Donald Trump. His rapprochement with the Republican establishment is stalled. His head-to-head poll numbers against Hillary Clinton don't look great. Even rank-and-file GOP voters are starting to show buyer's remorse, with small majorities telling pollsters they'd rather have a different nominee.

Trump still has his defenders, however, and they argue that he has already won, no matter what happens in November. After all, they say, Trump has freed the public debate from the politically correct cage to which it was once consigned. Indeed, plenty of sophisticated Trump supporters say the presumptive Republican nominee has shifted the Overton window — that is, widened the acceptable range of ideas we can talk about in our public life.

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W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.