Managing the Overton

How to Manage the Overton Window: Why Conversations About Controversial Ideas Matter

Did you hear what [insert influencer, media pundit, personality] said?!!! That’s not what I believe! They shall have no part of my kingdom! I’m unsubscribing! I’m muting. I’m blocking. They are NO LONGER PART OF THE MOVEMENT!

The Overton Platforming Dilemma

Case in point: Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes, a move that some say gives credibility to a “Holocaust denying” Hitlerian scar on the Conservative, America First landscape! “Tucker is making that vermin appear, well, HUMAN!”

The worst part is how softball the conversation was. Tucker didn’t push back on any of Nick’s assertions, not even to clarify his views on fascism, chauvinism, or Joseph Stalin. What does that say about Tucker?

The growing controversy is whether or not media outlets and social media should give any air time to personalities with controversial views. More platforms have drawn a firm line, refusing to host certain voices and their ideas in an effort to distance themselves from perspectives seen as extreme, repugnant, or simply outside accepted norms.

This strategy—commonly described as narrowing the “Overton window”—has become a flashpoint in debates about free speech, truth, and who gets to influence public conversation.

Why Argue Over the Overton Window?

Platforming wasn’t an issue when major media outlets buried content they didn’t want the public to know. But today, major media outlets are dinosaurs facing the asteroids of new media, where the public is increasingly getting the news from podcasters, preferred online pundits, and social media feeds. That’s an open field.

Our society is also facing significant questions about our cultural mythology based on revelations about the Kennedy assassination, the Epstein files, who knew what about 9/11, and so on. Tucker has even platformed Darryl Cooper of the Martyr Made podcast as a “leading historian” who is questioning the official dogma about World War II and Churchill’s reaction to Hitler’s aggression.

“Conspiracy theories,” a term invented by the intel community in the wake of Kennedy and the now discredited Warren Commission, are becoming reality, or appearing like reality, whether the old media guards want to admit them or not.

At the same time, media organizations are under immense pressure to stay “on brand.” In a competitive environment driven by investor and advertiser expectations, outlets face real financial risk in associating with personalities who could alienate key stakeholders. Avoiding controversy often feels safer, even if it means excluding perspectives that challenge mainstream beliefs.

Managing the Overton Window in New Media

It’s one thing that Fox News didn’t want Newt Gingrich challenging Soros’ role in the 2020 election fraud. Or the election fraud! Or Daily Wire or Turning Point refusing to debate Groypers (Nick Fuentes’ fans) because it’s off brand.

It’s another thing to define what is acceptable discourse in a free speech society. Simply refusing controversial voices airtime doesn’t make their ideas disappear. In fact, research shows that exclusion can fracture audiences and drive people to echo chambers, where narratives become even more extreme and insulated.

In the case of Nick Fuentes, exclusion made him stronger. If we accept his “villain origin story” he tells in the Tucker interview, The Daily Wire overreacted to his questions of Israel’s over-involvement in US policy, not only creating a censorship atmosphere, but fostering an animosity that made Nick a leading voice for America First.

Media gatekeeping, once a tool for upholding standards, now risks fueling distrust. Is the Daily Wire and Mark Levin bought by the Israelis? Is Tucker a Qatar stooge or a Fed? Is Nick right about Israel, the Jews and are these media gatekeepers gaslighting us the same way the mainstream media gaslights us about election fraud, Covid, Epstein, Biden’s senility, and damned near everything else we thought we knew about the world?

Reset the Overton: Constructive Engagement

The most resilient and trusted media outlets will be those that face controversy openly, not by amplifying destructive rhetoric, but by focusing rigorously on the content of ideas—separating substance from personality.

• Address Ideas, not personalities: Sure Nick may be a jerk. Or a “nice guy” struggling to get out. That’s irrelevant. Debate ideas on their validity, impact, and supporting evidence—not on a variation of identity politics. Everyone is evolving. Tucker admits to being a neocon stooge at one time, so he’s not above evolving further if presented with compelling information.
• Acknowledge the Spectrum: Clearly explain where your stance fits among competing views and under what conditions your position could evolve. Transparency builds credibility and invites open, honest discourse. In social media, authenticity is now more important that credentials, so give it a try.
• Test Ideas like Hypotheses: Treat even uncomfortable perspectives as claims to examine, not threats to banish. Publicly demonstrate the process of critical evaluation, showing how strong ideas can stand up to scrutiny while weak ones are discarded.
• Promote Civil Disagreement: Encourage respectful debate and honest inquiry. When media takes disagreement seriously—without hostility or condescension—they model the kind of dialogue that strengthens democracy and keeps society connected.

I also believe this is what Charlie Kirk would want, an open exchange of ideas. Even as he dismissed Nick as “vermin.”

The Daily Wire does not have to “platform” Nick Fuentes in a debate, but the team may want address his concerns, especially if they’re making headlines in the cultural conversation. It’s referred to as “Newsjacking”:

Newsjacking: “marketing and public relations strategy where brands or individuals insert their ideas, insights, or expertise into a breaking news story to gain visibility, attract a wider audience, and capitalize on the publicity and traffic generated by the event.”

For example, the first time I heard of Nick Fuentes, he was pushing a concept called, “Demographics is destiny,” which simply means that recent studies show that US immigrants are not assimilating and voting like individuals. They’re voting like a tribe, >80% for Democrats. Nick said that if we can’t get them to function in a 2-party system, we should stop immigration until we get our act together.

Well respected journalist Michelle Malkin agreed with the idea, and suddenly, she disappeared from Fox News. Other outlets followed. Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan said simply “Americans can come from anywhere,” and dismissed the studies and all its statistics as racism.

Now that the “great replacement theory” is proven de facto DNC policy under Biden, and our government is spending $billions to deport millions of illegals who wave foreign flags and flout our laws, isn’t it time to reopen the Overton window on “Demographics is Destiny” in the larger immigration and naturalization debate?

Examples worth mentioning

• Darryl Cooper asserts Churchill is the hidden villain of WW2
  If you thought Trump was prone to carnival-barker hyperbole, witness pundits and historians take Darryl’s unripe remark and extrapolate it into revisionist hysteria, claiming Darryl thinks Hitler was the good guy, the Holocaust was a logistical mistake and Tucker is fraud for platforming this radical. The truth is probably closer to the strategy of Churchill refusing to make a deal with Hitler after Dunkirk. Had he let the Nazis defeat Soviet communism, could he have forestalled the Holocaust and the millions of dead? We’ll have to wait for Darryl to finish his research.
• Is Israel and ally or the puppet master controlling US foreign policy?
  Trump bombing Iran’s nuclear sites did more than enflame WW3 terror, it revealed several pundits as supposed “antisemitic” shills for the deep state, or something. Candace Owens, Dave Smith, and others exhausted most of their good will with tales of Israel’s history attack on the US Liberty, AIPAC’s foreign agent loopholes, and calls for Trump’s impeachment since he’s a Bibi Netanyahu’s Manchurian Candidate. This morass deserves its own field of study but it’s more likely that Trump agreed with intel assessments that Iran should be stopped. Trump didn’t start WW3, so can we all go back to the idea that Trump is still America First but time and foreign responsibilities can’t wait for us to get our act together?
• 9/11 Trutherism
  Much like the Obama birth certificate, a thing is either true or not. Did Bush let terrorists attack the World Trade Center for the insurance write-off? Did Israeli Mossad know or plan it? Was it an inside job with a controlled demolition meant to look like terrorism? As Bill Whittle points out, the best way to argue this is to accept the premise and try to work through the problem: how do you get miles of cables into the towers along with all that explosive material without anyone noticing? And remove it all or we buy off the salvage crews to keep them all quiet? I watched the second plane hit the building with my own eyes, so how did they time this controlled demolition with that event? Yeah, Building 7 is an oddity! Okay, did anyone interview the building inspector? And can we at least agree that Islamic terror still had some hand in 9/11?
• Charlie Kirk’s assassination: leftist trans radical or some deep conspiracy?
  This may be the most repellant. We recently lost a highly respected voice for sanity in our culture, live, on video! It’s heart-breaking, detestable, an act of evil that goes against the very fabric of civil discourse. And if we can’t agree that we caught the guy responsible, then I don’t know what to say. Put up or shut up. How’s that?

In a world awash with new evidence, new tools, and uncomfortable questions, managing the Overton window can’t mean closing it on dissenting voices. It’s about bringing more light into the room, empowering audiences to think critically, and supporting a stronger, more informed society.

And if you disagree, as Greg Gutfeld used to say, “You’re worse than Hitler.”