The mainstream has indirect influence though. If the mainstream had found those actions intolerable, he either wouldn’t have done it or there would have been a strong enough backlash from society for him to face consequences. But he did and there wasn’t. We all (hopefully) agree that 30 years ago, what he did would have been unacceptable. So there you go, shifted Overton window.
Mainstream means “used or accepted broadly rather than by small portions of population, market, scientific community, etc.”. There was an action, there was some debate, then everybody shrugged it off and/or moved on. That’s acceptance. You can’t just say that something isn’t mainstream because you feel it isn’t.
everybody shrugged it off and/or moved on. That’s acceptance.
Sorry, that’s a non-sequitur. Aside from his bootlickers and the already extremist voices, there might have a good amount of people trying to downplay it, or trying to excuse him for it, but no one in the mainstream looked at what he did and argued that it should be acceptable to go around making Nazi salutes.
If more people had started doing it after he did it, you’d be totally right. But after all the backlash it was clear that he didn’t get any support there.
Anyway, I feel like arguing over specific actions is not helpful when the Overton Window is more about shifts in cultural trends. I’d take the surge of “trad wife influencers” much more seriously as an example of “right shifting” than any controversy over what Elon or any asshole billionaire did or did not do.
The mainstream has indirect influence though. If the mainstream had found those actions intolerable, he either wouldn’t have done it or there would have been a strong enough backlash from society for him to face consequences. But he did and there wasn’t. We all (hopefully) agree that 30 years ago, what he did would have been unacceptable. So there you go, shifted Overton window.
Mainstream means “used or accepted broadly rather than by small portions of population, market, scientific community, etc.”. There was an action, there was some debate, then everybody shrugged it off and/or moved on. That’s acceptance. You can’t just say that something isn’t mainstream because you feel it isn’t.
Sorry, that’s a non-sequitur. Aside from his bootlickers and the already extremist voices, there might have a good amount of people trying to downplay it, or trying to excuse him for it, but no one in the mainstream looked at what he did and argued that it should be acceptable to go around making Nazi salutes.
If more people had started doing it after he did it, you’d be totally right. But after all the backlash it was clear that he didn’t get any support there.
Anyway, I feel like arguing over specific actions is not helpful when the Overton Window is more about shifts in cultural trends. I’d take the surge of “trad wife influencers” much more seriously as an example of “right shifting” than any controversy over what Elon or any asshole billionaire did or did not do.