The Future Where Nothing Is Off-Limits Has Arrived

This week, The Atlantic published a revealing, chilling article of where American politics stands a year into Donald Trump’s second presidency. It describes “Trump Exhaustion Syndrome,” a beleaguered acceptance of norm-shattering behavior that would once have provoked outrage.

The piece paints a portrait of a president who has consistently pushed every norm, not just to its limits but beyond them — so far, in fact, that Steve Bannon bluntly told The Atlantic, “Fuck the Overton window.” That’s not just a figure of speech from a blustering Trump acolyte. It is a tactical admission that what used to be unthinkable is now routine.

Sit with that for a moment. The Overton window — the range of ideas considered acceptable in public discourse — is supposed to provide a societal boundary between reason and madness, evidence and fantasy, policy and propaganda. But over the last decade since Donald Trump rode down the golden escalator, the Overton window has not shifted. It has been obliterated with intent.

Trump and his allies did not argue their way into legitimacy. Instead, they exhausted the system until it stopped resisting. They flooded the zone with lies, violations, threats, and norm-breaking until outrage became unsustainable and sanity became optional.

https://saltypolitics.substack.com/p/the-future-where-nothing-is-off-limits il