Overton window

The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.

The term is named after the American policy analyst and former senior vice president at Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Joseph Overton, who proposed that the political viability of an idea depends mainly on whether it falls within an acceptability range, rather than on the individual preferences of politicians using the term or concept.

The premise of the concept Overton defined was that politicians typically act freely only within a window seen as acceptable.

According to Lehman, who coined the term: The most common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window.

[6]According to Lehman, the concept is just a description of how ideas work, not about advocacy of extreme policy proposals.