I was raised without any illusions that either party has policies which can significantly improve people's lives, so I have derision for the centrist who evaluates both parties as fairly ok, and just can't decide which is better.

But, from a far-left anarchist position I can still recognize that the difference will often improve some people's lives over the long term by providing better conditions to organize under.

I also don't dismiss everyone having equal power to vote because my ideal society is one in which there are no unjustified hierarchies and who has more power is imperceptible and debatable due to most people playing an integrally valuable role.

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The most important thing about the Overton window, however, is that it can be shifted to the left or the right, with the once merely “acceptable” becoming “popular” or even imminent policy, and formerly “unthinkable” positions becoming the open position of a partisan base. The challenge for activists and advocates is to move the window in the direction of their preferred outcomes, so their desired outcome moves closer and closer to “common sense.”

There are two ways to do this: the long, hard way and the short, easy way. The long, hard way is to continue making your actual case persistently and persuasively until your position becomes more politically mainstream, whether it be due to the strength of your rhetoric or a long-term shift in societal values. By contrast, the short, easy way is to amplify and echo the voices of those who take a position a few notches more radical than what you really want.

For example, if what you actually want is a public health care option in the United States, coordinate with and promote those pushing for single-payer, universal health care. If the single-payer approach constitutes the “acceptable left” flank of the discourse, then the public option looks, by comparison, like the conservative option it was once considered back when it was first proposed by Orrin Hatch in 1994.

This is Negotiating 101.

- Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution – Use your radical fringe to shift the Overton window P. 215.