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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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Exactly, expressing the idea that maybe unlimited immigration from absolutely anywhere, or unlimited free trade from absolutely anywhere are not unalloyed goods is, or was, outside the overton window regardless of who said it. Anyone who would express it would have gotten the same treatment. Trump noticed a majority of people still largely held that opinion even if they could not express it, saw an opportunity there, so he went and stood outside the window, drawing all the aggro to him. And since he's a legendary tank, to keep the MMORPG allegory going, he's somehow doing fine, and now the overton window is a bit wider than it was before. Outside of the specifics of his first and presumed second presidency, of whether he's too pro-Israel or too close to Russia, or of whether he's capable of wielding the executive bureaucracy effectively, at least his ability to take the slings and arrows is unmatched, and his forceful widening of the overton window was probably a necessary first step for any actual move to the right (or neutralisation of leftward drift).