Why we Need to Shift Constitutional Purpose and our Shared Grievance into the Overton Window

And How to Do it

What is the Overton Window?

As described by the good folks at The Overton Window – Mackinac Center

The Overton Window is a model for understanding how ideas in society change over time and influence politics. The core concept is that politicians are limited in what policy ideas they can support — they generally only pursue policies that are widely accepted throughout society as legitimate policy options. These policies lie inside the Overton Window. Other policy ideas exist, but politicians risk losing popular support if they champion these ideas. These policies lie outside the Overton Window.

We are in a fight to control what policies are allowed into the Overton Window for our citizens to see and learn about what is legitimate and acceptable, and all too few of us understand the existential importance of this issue.

For over 40 years, conservative think tanks (like the Heritage Foundation) were created to infuse their propaganda into our public discourse and that empowers them to manipulate just enough of our poorly educated citizens in order to elect their corrupt officials. They are quite good at it and will get even better at exploiting not only current but future tech like AI to perfect their propaganda machines.  This should be very scary for all of us.

The good news is that if we can share the truth about the root cause of our grievances, our networks and computers can be even more effective than lies and propaganda, but only when our grievances and our proposed redressings make it into the Overton Window.

Until we can get a critical mass of citizens to learn the truth about what they need to know to make reasoned choices for our elections, we will continue to elect corrupt and incompetent leaders who will serve their oligarchs and kleptocratic masters. 

Therefore, I would like to propose this series of events that we need to happen in order to make America work the way it should:

·       End up with a supermajority of competent progressives in office (that will fulfill their Constitutional Purpose). Our citizens must collaborate with them and use best practices to redress our grievances (those generated by the powers of corporate personhood) and manage our commons (for e.g., like our government, our military, America’s parks, infrastructures and our air, land and water). Moreover, our elected decision-makers must lead us to build and maintain a role model education system and a role model healthcare system.

·       But before we do that, we need our legislatures to pass Move to Amend’s We the People Amendment to end the powers of corporate personhood or the morbidly rich sociopaths who control our elected leaders will continue their oligarchic ways.  And that requires a supermajority of competent progressives in local, state, and federal office who must work to build and rebuild our democracy with best practices (see above).

·       But before we do that, we need to elect a supermajority of competent progressive decision-makers (at all levels) that pledge to fulfill their Constitutional Purpose using best practices. And that pledge must include their dedicated support to pass the amendment.

·       But before we do that, we need to get most of our citizens to accept that we require the passage of the We the People Amendment.  We can do that by framing the concepts of Constitutional Purpose, Corporate Constitutional Rights and the We the People Amendment in the Overton Window.

·       But before we do that, we need to inspire 12 million people (3.5% of us) to begin the process by engaging in sustained nonviolent resistance with the goal of moving the concepts of Constitutional Purpose, Corporate Constitutional Rights and the We the People Amendment into the Overton Window.  And that must include making our grievances (and their redressments) framed in the Overton Window as well. We can engage in sustained nonviolent resistance with a viral assault of media (social and otherwise) that can put our grievances and how to redress them right in the Overton Window.

·       But before we do that, we need to establish a common understanding of what our elected officials are supposed to do for us and why they are failing to fulfill their Constitutional Purpose.  And we should make it clear that our shared expectation for their performance while in office is that they will do their best to fulfill their Constitutional Purpose.

I know that the changes I propose might seem a bit daunting, but by using the only proven method that can make our democracy work the way it should (with a strategically deployed sustained nonviolent resistance of 3.5% of us), it has never been more doable because of all the learning that has gone before.

 At the heart of our necessary changes is learning.  That means we need enough citizens to learn the existential nature of our ultimate grievance.  Specifically, whether we know it or not, we all share one uber grievance, and that is the fact that SCOTUS created the powers of corporate personhood and their resultant Corporate Constitutional Rights.  In addition, we also need to show everyone how to get that grievance redressed using best practices.

Since the election, it would be hard to argue that there has ever been such a tsunami of bedwetting in the history of our country.  And I completely understand, perhaps more so than most because I am a regular reader of Thom Hartmann’s remarkable array of books, rants and editorials.  Just as importantly, I understand how bad things might become because Thom Hartmann keeps his audiences aware of relevant current events because he continues to be a role model learner and role model teacher. Hartmann shares with us the truth as it is known, and he’s better at it than anyone I am aware of.  And the truth is scary.

(I believe that if we could get most of our citizens to read Hartmann’s Hidden History Series of books, we could fill the Overton Window with the necessary public discourse and solutions to fix our democracy in short order.)

The more you know about the issues and grievances that we should be talking about (and not those the MSM and social media have put in the Overton Window with which to manipulate us), the more you will understand why these issues and grievances must be the focus of public discourse. And we must do it by moving them into the Overton Window.

So, before we go off in a thousand directions in search of a way to fix this mess, we need to first agree on what caused all of our grievances in the first place, and then figure out what we can do to stop it.   I submit (and have proven in past posts) that the backsliding of our democracy is because of a few corrupt SCOTUS decisions that made up the powers of corporate personhood, which have resulted in special Corporate Constitutional Rights (including immunity from everything for the bad guys who control enough money/power). 

These new “Constitutional” rulings enabled the oligarchs and other kleptocrats to command their corrupt and faux-Christian SCOTUS “justices” to create the Corporate Constitutional Rights that allow the morbidly rich to do whatever they want.  And then they make our citizens, and the rest of the world, pay for the consequences (i.e., their negative externalities).

Once we acknowledge the root cause of our nation’s problems, we can leverage the power of the Overton Window by inspiring 12 million citizens to collaborate on a plan to employ Dr. Erica Chenoweth’s 3.5% Solution to fix things. 

I propose that we need just enough citizens to begin the process of framing our public discourse around our elected officials’ Constitutional Purpose as well identifying and discussing our master grievance of corporate personhood, and the Corporate Constitutional Rights that empower our oligarchs and other morbidly rich sociopaths. 

However, before our elected officials go back to failing to fulfill their Constitutional purpose (by continuing to not address global climate change, nor immigration reform nor gun violence nor poverty nor the pervasive lack of role model healthcare nor the hundreds (if not thousands) of other grievances that our citizens have with our government), we must first agree on what our elected officials are supposed to do while they are in office, in other words, what is their Constitutional Purpose? 

But have you ever heard anyone ask that question? 

After all, can you think of a more basic concept for running our democracy?  Every organization must have a mission statement that defines its purpose, and its employees are supposed to work to fulfill that purpose.  It seems intuitively obvious that we should all expect our elected officials to meet that standard as well.

Our democratic republic has had a mission statement since its inception, we call it the Preamble to the Constitution.  The Preamble has six simple objectives that define the purpose of our elected officials.  The overriding purpose being that they must serve to promote our general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.  The other four objectives are there in support of our general welfare for now and the future.

For this to be a useful exercise in learning and moving relevant concepts into the Overton Window, we will need the majority of our fellow citizens to share a common understanding about our elected officials’ Constitutional Purpose. 

Then we need most of our citizens to accept it as part of the Overton Window so our elected officials and candidates for office understand what they must do to satisfy their Constitutional Oath AND get reelected.  It is crucial that we share the same interpretation of what they are to do to redress our grievances as well as promote our general welfare.

Therefore, if we are to make our democracy work the way it should, I propose that the majority of our fellow Americans must first attain a common understanding of our elected officials’ Constitutional Purpose (which is to promote our general welfare using best practices and that includes protecting us from those who do things adverse to our rights and our communities’ interests-to paraphrase James Madison).

In addition, we also must agree that the root cause of our grievances with our elected representatives is the fact that unlimited and anonymous money is speech and corporations are people.

Those powers of corporate personhood have spawned the Corporate Constitutional Rights which empower the oligarchs and other kleptocrats to exploit them and make the rest of us pay for their negative externalities with our blood and treasure. 

I believe that if over half of America’s voters learned that their elected officials are supposed to be in office to fulfill their Constitutional Purpose (using best practices), we could shift the Overton Window to force public discourse by reframing what our representatives should be doing for us and with us. (If you have a different opinion as to how many of us it will take to make Constitutional Purpose and the powers of corporate personhood part of accepted public discourse, please let me know.)

The Overton Window also must focus on the reason our elected officials are failing in their purpose is because of the exploitation of Corporate Constitutional Rights.   

We can make the Overton Window include these concepts and force the discourse to get competent officials elected. But how do you get 150 million voters to agree on anything? 

As I have noted in previous posts, the best way is to first motivate 3.5% of us to engage in sustained nonviolent resistance in order to make our grievances and issues known to the majority of our citizens.  In the case of fixing our government, the purpose of sustained nonviolent resistance is to educate the public with strategic framing of our elected leaders’ Constitutional Purpose and the fact that the powers of corporate personhood are why they are not able to meet their purpose.  (Basically, we just ask the questions, what is the purpose of my elected officials and why are they failing to fulfill their purpose?)

The project should become a 21^st century digital public forum grounded in Constitutional Purpose as well the root cause grievance of our democracy’s backslide into autocracy.

Although there are countless organizations that might be interested in this project to make America into a role model democracy, I think that Indivisible.org and its members and activists make the perfect team to draw from because there are already millions of really engaged citizens, and whether they know it or not, they share the same root cause grievance (i.e., anonymous and unlimited money is speech and corporations are people). 

Moreover, they are already “activated” to fix our democracy and Indivisible.org is not only responsive and flexible but their exceptional leadership is exactly what the project needs. 

Please ask Indivisible.org to engage in this project because without their leadership and activism, the bad guys who exploit the powers of corporate personhood and their SCOTUS-bred Corporate Constitutional Rights will continue to force our democracy into autocracy. And if you are interested in getting involved, please let me know.

Thanks,

Dave