Here’s a detailed breakdown of dog-whistle politics, its origins, how it works, and key takeaways:
What is Dog-Whistle Politics?
- Coded Messaging: Dog-whistle politics uses seemingly innocuous words or phrases that carry a deeper, often negative, meaning to a specific target audience. These messages are designed to resonate with certain groups without being overtly offensive to the general public.
- Origins: While the term “dog whistle” is relatively recent, the practice has a long history. It originates from silent dog whistles, which produce sounds inaudible to humans but that dogs can hear clearly.
- Purpose: Dog-whistle tactics aim to exploit existing social divisions, often around race, religion, or ideology, to gain political support. These coded messages signal solidarity with specific groups while maintaining plausible deniability to avoid accusations of explicit bias.
How Does it Work?
- Identifying In-Group Sentiment: Politicians using dog-whistle strategies carefully study the prejudices, fears, or desires of their target audience.
- Coded Language Development: Words or phrases are crafted to tap into those sentiments without explicitly stating them. This allows the politician to dog whistle to their intended audience while leaving room for denial of wrongdoing.
- Delivery: The coded message is delivered through speeches, campaign materials, or social media. The target audience picks up on the hidden meaning, while the broader public may remain unaware.
Historical and Modern Examples
- States’ Rights: Historically, the term “states’ rights” has been used as a dog whistle to signal support for segregation and resist federal civil rights legislation.
- Welfare Queens: Ronald Regan’s stories of “welfare queens” perpetuated harmful stereotypes about Black women exploiting social programs.
- Barack Obama’s Middle Name: Emphasis on Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, was a dog whistle suggesting foreignness and possible connections to Islam.
- “Illegal Immigrants”: Using the term “illegal immigrants” plays on anxieties around immigration and casts undocumented individuals as inherently criminal.
Why is Dog-Whistle Politics Harmful?
- Divisiveness: It reinforces stereotypes and fosters a climate of “us vs. them,” promoting harmful social division and fueling prejudice.
- Deniability: Dog whistles allow politicians to advance harmful agendas without open accountability, undermining transparency in political discourse.
- Policy Implications: Messages that paint certain groups in a negative light can influence policies that disproportionately affect those communities.
Key Takeaways
- Dog-whistle politics is not new, but it’s important to recognize it. Understanding how these tactics work empowers citizens to critically assess political messages.
- Coded language has real consequences. These messages aren’t harmless; they fuel discrimination and influence policy outcomes.
- Words Matter: It’s important to be aware of both the explicit and implicit meaning in political discourse.
- Demand Accountability: Citizens should challenge politicians who use dog whistles, demanding clear and transparent communication.
By recognizing dog-whistle politics, we can expose the underlying intent of these harmful messages and work towards a political landscape built on honesty, respect, and inclusivity.
What Is Whistle Dog Politics?
Similar to a real dog whistle, which emits sound at a high frequency that dogs can hear but humans cannot, dog-whistle politics refers to the use of code words that are not heard or noticed by most people but that send a specific message to a target audience that is typically nasty and racially charged.
The act of disseminating politically charged codes or subliminal messages intended specifically for a specific group of people is known as “dog whistle politics.”
Dog whistles are, in actuality, devices that produce high-pitched frequencies that are only audible to dogs; humans are not even aware that the sound is being produced.
Dog whistle communications, in their metaphorical form, are audible and comprehensible only to members of specific groups and not to the general public.
Origin Of Whistle Dog Politics:
In 1947, the term “dog whistle” was coined for the first time. At that point, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave a speech that was “crafted to resemble a contemporary dog whistle, but with a tone so high that the unsympathetic East would not hear it and the sensitive country ear would pick it up wonderfully,” according to a book titled American Economic History.
Pundits have charged President Donald Trump with employing dog whistles to send racist and xenophobic signals to his followers in recent years.
According to reports, the phrase “dog-whistle politics” first appeared in Australia in the middle of the 1990s,
when Prime Minister John Howard, who was also one of Harper’s political mentors, was charged with using derogatory terms like “un-Australian” and “illegals” in an attempt to win over racist, white Australians. Lynton Crosby, known as the “master of dog-whistle politics,” oversaw Howard’s campaign.
In 2005, Crosby debuted his brand of politics to the British public by developing electoral messaging for the Conservative Party with the catchphrase “Are you thinking what we’re thinking?” The advertising centered on contentious themes such as immigration and crime.
One of the statements was, “Limiting immigration is not racist.” Later, Crosby rose to the position of top political strategist for British Prime Minister David Cameron.
How is it used?
The United States has probably used dog-whistle politics longer or more enthusiastically than any other nation.
Moreover, legal scholar Ian Haney Lopez traced the practice back to the 1960s, long before the phrase was coined in Australia, in his book Dog Whistle Politics: The Way that Coded Racial Appeals Have Destroyed the Middle Class and revived racism.
He claimed that it all began with the Republican candidate Barry Goldwater’s unsuccessful 1964 presidential campaign. Goldwater ran on a platform of “states rights,” an innocent-sounding term that, given the racial tensions of the day, was meant to be interpreted as support for states defying federal orders to integrate their schools.
Haney Lopez claimed that during Ronald Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign, the former actor’s tales of Clutching young men purchasing T-bone steaks with food stamps and driving Cadillacs were used to dispel rumors that indolent Black people were taking advantage of social welfare programs.
More recently, there has been criticism of the use of President Barack Obama’s middle name Hussein, and calls to see his birth certificate as an attempt to plant the notion that he is not genuinely an American but rather a Muslim who was born outside of the nation and might have connections with terrorism.
Conclusion:
Dog whistle politics is mostly used these days to refer to nasty statements that are coded. It is generally not acceptable in society at large to make remarks that are xenophobic, racist, or sexist. In other words, politicians who wish to make such claims must speak in code or, alternatively, use dog whistles.
