1. This is a perfect description of what Trump is up to. He's reopening questions many Americans (esp. younger ones) thought had been settled--is America a nation of immigrants? is birthright citizenship fair? is white nationalism so bad? is Islamophobia bad? is homophobia wrong?
2. The alacrity with which Lindsey Graham embraced the end of birthright citizenship today is very notable. It indicates just how rapidly and radically Trump has dragged the GOP to the right.
3. Before Trump's election, conservative media activists began referring to this strategy as "shifting the Overton Window." Here's a good explainer. vox.com/2017/12/21/168…
4. Before 2016 it was unthinkable that a judge could get appointed who refused to unequivocally endorse Brown v. Board, the decision that said racial segregation in American public schools is unconstitutional. Now? Well...maybe. pbs.org/newshour/polit…
5. The idea that a sitting President would call for his opposing candidate to be jailed was inconceivable. Now it's one of Trump's most popular applause lines.
6. The idea that we would abandon NATO and the UN; while embracing the far right nationalists, authoritarians, and oligarchs of Europe was something no Presidential candidate since WWII would have ever imagined. Now it's the centerpiece of GOP policy.
7. The idea that a president would publicly endorse far right, anti-semitic and racist conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact is shocking. Now we've had two acts of mass violence inspired by such narratives.
8. The idea that a President would refer to the free press as "the enemy of the people" and goad followers to scream at reporters was unthinkable, at least since Watergate. Now it's standard operating procedure.
9. Ideas matter. Conservatives have long understood that. They've also understood that established conventions constrain what is thinkable (& hence politically possible) in any particular moment. If you expand the boundary of what's thinkable, you expand the range of the possible
10. This is in part why historians are especially concerned about what's been happening since the election.
11. Sure, Trump hasn't jailed Hillary Clinton. Sure, there's been no successful move to systematically resegregate public schools any more than they are now. Sure, we're still in NATO & the UN. Sure, birthright citizenship still exists.
12. But shifting the Overton window to make such previously unthinkable things thinkable is precisely the way these things become political realities in real historical time. They should not be dismissed as speculative, wacko ideas Trump threw out in some Axios interview.
14. These ideas have a constituency on the American far right. The GOP for years knew that, but kept that on the down low (and didn't bring these ideas up in public much) because they knew most voters would find such ideas repellent.
14. But now Trump has just blown the lid off of that former practice of restraint. And the thing that has shocked many political observers like myself (especially the more naive ones) is the eagerness with which the entire GOP has just gone along with it.
15. The GOP folks who don't like what Trump is saying comfort themselves by thinking "oh it's just talk, none of this stuff is going to happen." Hopefully this thread has explained why I think that's morally irresponsible wishful thinking.
16. And then there are the GOP folks like Steve King who feel liberated by Trump. Finally they can say what they REALLY think...and that's even scarier. If the GOP becomes the party of Steve King (not a party that tolerates Steve King), then we are in a world of hurt.
