Even though Overton was on the opposite political camp from me, I 100% agree with his “Overton window” model, which says that there’s a narrow range of politics acceptable to the mainstream, so pundits and think tanks who push radically outside that window have a lot of impact. Of course, he wanted to push on the wrong side of that window, but that doesn’t mean the tactic is ineffective. It has, unfortunately, been very effective for them.
It’s not just one singular “tactic” either. It’s a somewhat reasonably accurate model of how policy making in an electoral democracy works, and like all models there are more than one valid way to react to it and try to solve the problems highlighted by the model or leverage the advantages of the model.
Obviously like all models ever, the map isn’t the territory and there are more than one way to slice up the world and look at things. This window model is just one particular glass in the toolbox; let’s stay open minded and also look at other ways to slice things.