While we all look ahead to 2020—which can be fun, that I will not deny—it might be best to start by looking back. On Tuesday, Trump gave his second State of the Union Address, followed by the Democratic rebuttal given by Stacey Abrams. Reading through Twitter after the address, I was expecting to find my favorite political voices pushing back on Trump’s falsehoods and rhetoric, and I did, but right before sighing and calling it a night, I found something even more profound. It was a tweet, retweeted by an account I follow, written by Joe Kennedy. He was offering support and advice for Stacey Abrams before her rebuttal speech. It took me a minute to even understand the tweet’s context: Kennedy gave the Democrat’s State of the Union rebuttal a year earlier, at the end of Trump’s first year in office. Aside from jokes about Kennedy’s over-application of chapstick (which he poked at in the tweet), the speech ultimately fell flat. That’s not to say it wasn’t well done, but it is to say that it appeared to be Kennedy’s opportunity to be thought of as the future of the Democratic Party, and a year later, he is not. In a very short time, the Democratic Party has experienced some pretty significant changes.
To explain this, let us go back further, to 2015, when Hillary announced she was running for President. Her campaign, personality notwithstanding, was essentially a promise for 4 more years of Obama: hold the line on some of the important victories Democrats had won, like Obamacare, the Iran Nuclear Deal, and legalizing gay marriage, and build on some of the things he began to do, like strengthening discrimination laws and making minor cutbacks in incarceration laws. Then Bernie came along, then Cynthia Nixon, then Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and today, our Democratic Party has taken an entirely different form. It is being moved by a diverse array of faces, it is confronting and pushing back on its opponents, and it is insisting on bold changes. Part of this, it must be said, is due to a wholly unpopular president and stagnation in progress on health care, tax reform, and mass incarceration, which are key issues for the American public. But it is also an important lesson in American political science. A lesson borne of our obsession with the moderate, our two-party system, and a relatively obscure idea called the Overton Window (to be explained later).
Let us start with the moderate, who is the fixation of nearly every politician who hopes to take office. When we envision our two-party system, we imagine our microeconomics lesson on two competing hot-dog stands: if there are two hot-dog stands on a street, logic would say the best placement would be such that the two stands broke the street up into 3 equal parts. To increase Stand A’s business in this situation, one would suggest moving closer to the middle of the street—customers who were once in the middle now find themselves closer to Stand A, while those on the edge of the street are unaffected. For an example of this kind of thinking in politics, simply look for anyone begging the Democratic Party to abandon things like Medicare for All or free college tuition in order to “appeal to the moderate.”
The problem with this opinion is that it fundamentally misunderstands how American politics work. If we go back to the hot-dog stands, what happens in the long run if the best idea to increase business is to stay close to the center? The answer is that we are eventually left with two stands directly next to each other—a smart reaction in the short term turns into a long-term equilibrium where very few people are happy with the inefficient placement of the stands. Next, who’s to say that the location of the people has to be fixed? The first question ties in deeply to Clinton’s 2016 campaign; an obsession with being near the center leaves voters near the edges unhappy, and they end up staying home or voting for Jill Stein. The answer to the second explains the importance of figures like Bernie Sanders and AOC; bold ideas, attractive messaging, and genuine desire for change has the Democratic Party promised for success in 2020 and beyond.
The best articulation of this is the Overton Window, a theory whose named was coined in the late 20th century by Joesph P. Overton, which explains just how vital the “New Left” wing of the Democratic Party is. The theory goes that the mainstream discourse exists in a certain window, with its center being the “moderate” take, and its edges the farthest one can go without appearing extreme (and being dismissed). Just 3 years ago, college tuition and Medicare for All fell outside this window and would have been disqualifying in a presidential candidate. The interesting thing about the Overton Window is that it is not a fixed box in space, immovable and restrictive; it is a fluid area that can be expanded, contracted, and pulled in either direction.
Bernie Sanders, through his grassroots campaign and social-media-friendly advertising, moved the Overton Window, putting M4A and other “socialist” policies on America’s radar. In New York, AOC proved that such ideas were not simply possibilities, they were winning policy goals, as she upset a 10-year incumbent en route to becoming the youngest female ever elected to Congress. As she leads the progressive charge, Republicans are taking notice, as many on the campaign trail made sure to tell voters they would protect their public health care. The point is not to say that the next president will pass Medicare for All or that a stronger Republican Party will not find answers to a growing swell of progressive support, but the lesson is this: too long have Democrats wholly misunderstood the game they are playing, as bold ideas populate the left, they do not weaken Democrats, they pull voters with them, making a stronger party for years to come.