Y’all insisting this is a joke making fun of Trump are, one, correct. And two, need to remember conservatives use jokes to push the Overton Window and protect themselves from criticism.

For example, Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein and their vile brood promoting racist and sexist “jokes” online (I still can’t believe fucking Epstein funded 4chan. Who’s writing this season?) in order to turn “edgy” American teens into actual racists - because the more you joke about something, the more normal it seems to talk about it, and that gives people who actually take it seriously room to debate and persuade.

Or take the White House, which routinely posts viciously, explicitly racist memes, and, when criticized, responds with “it’s just a joke, you’re stupid to be offended”. Conservatives are extraordinarily effective at using humor to promote hateful, bigoted ideologies, and because they refuse to defend or debate those messages, and call people stupid for expecting them to, they effectively silence their critics and prevent criticism of their hateful, bigoted ideologies.

Redeeming Bush Jr is certainly a hateful, bigoted act. And Newsom, whatever else he is, is clearly a conservative.

And on the gripping hand, remember the ratchet effect. It’s easy for modern Democrats to praise Bush Jr because, in a lot of ways, Bush Jr defined the modern Democratic Party. Obama followed the Bush Doctrine to the letter in terms of foreign policy, and Biden carried on his work. Cheney didn’t endorse Harris for nothing. There’s no daylight between the Republican Party of 2004 and the Democratic Party of 2024 when it comes to foreign relations or economic policy.

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We don’t shift the Overton Window by dismissing valid criticisms and facts we don’t like.

Except that is precisely how the Overton Window shifts.

The Overton Window is a range of socially acceptable facts, beliefs, criticisms, and opinions. Anything outside that range is socially unacceptable even if it’s valid.

The Overton Window isn’t about what criticisms and facts are valid. It’s about what criticisms and facts we are allowed to debate the validity of.

(For example, the internment of Japanese during World War II. It’s possible to debate the validity of that internment based on various historical facts. But no decent person would have that debate in the first place. It’s outside the Overton Window of decency. Which is why I expect Fox News to platform Michelle Malkin again shortly.)

The American media establishment has shifted the Overton Window in America, Europe, and Australia, further and further to the right over the last decades. They didn’t do it by considering all valid critiques. They did it by platforming and discussing right-wing critiques of society and the facts they were based on - even the invalid ones - and insisting left-wing critiques of society and the fact they were based on - even the valid ones - were unacceptable to discuss in public.

If we insist on giving right-wing ideas the same fair consideration we give left-wing ideas, we are accepting those right-wing ideas into our conception of what the Overton Window should be. And in the battle to control that window, we are disarming ourselves.