I’ve seen many people on social media arguing that it’s good for a segment of the Left to stake out an extreme position, like “Abolish the Police”… while another more moderate segment calls for “Reform the police.” The value of extreme demands is that it scares the crap out of your political opponents, and it makes them more likely to accept the more moderate proposals because they seem so much more reasonable in comparison.
Does this make sense?
That is pretty much the logic of the Overton Window.
I am pretty skeptical it works in general. I think there are at least two countervailing forces. First the extreme positions will be used to discredit the moderate positions. It will be claimed that police reform proposals are really a step towards abolishing the police. Since there are people in your coalition who are actually proposing the latter these claims will have some credibility. Secondly the extreme position will be taken seriously by many people on your side who will then become disillusioned with more moderate achievements and perhaps vote third party.
Yeah, as mentioned its the overton window.
Its why we need a mainstream communist party in the US, to make the progressives seem like the moderate concession party by comparison. Single payer and workers on executive boards isn’t that radical compared to public ownership of all private industry.