Then today Toe Cutter referred to the Overton Window, a phrase I was not familiar with. So I looked it up on Wiki. It seems my redefinition of PC to Popular Clique was along the same lines. What is PC is what is allowed within the culture without being unduly criticized or ostracized.
The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.[1] It is also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after Joseph P. Overton, who stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences.[2][3] According to Overton, the window frames the range of policies that a politician can recommend without appearing too extreme to gain or keep public office given the climate of public opinion at that time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Wiki carried this Chomsky quote which framed it nicely.
Noam Chomsky said in 1998:
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.[10]
And this is what I see a great deal of, debate within defined limits. When one goes outside those limits then the sophomorish ridicule and condemnation begins. The intent being to shame one back into the acceptable limits of the crowd while threatening ostracizisim for non compliance.
According to Lehman, who coined the term, "The most common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window. That is absolutely false. Lawmakers are actually in the business of detecting where the window is, and then moving to be in accordance with it."[7]
OK, I get what Lehman is saying, our Leaders are constantly seeking where the herd is pointed and the run to stand at the front.
So how does the herd decide which way to point? I am thinking that the MSM, Fox included, is where these limits are defined, it’s how we are told what is and is not acceptable, how broad the limits of discourse. The suave male newsman, the quite attractive newswoman, are the embodiment of the “political clique”, they are the “cool kids”, “most popular”, class President. Of course none of that seems to predict much how well the succeed in finding personal happiness, but in 7th grade it’s powerful.
And maybe that defines the USA POLITICAL status right now; 7th grade theatrics.