# Dog Whistles **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 25, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898 "2016-07-25T23:06:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/1 "2016-07-25T23:06:44Z")
You know, I am rather suspicious of this. A Dog whistle is supposed to be something your fans can hear. _"in which certain phrases have a particular meaning to a segment of the audience that passes unnoticed by the rest. This allows a candidate to surreptitiously signal agreement with that group, without alienating the rest of the audience, among whom the ideas might be unpopular if plainly stated._" XKCD explained. _“Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup.”_ wiki But every time here on this board- it is always \*the opposition \*that can hear this supposedly secret phrase that ONLY has meaning to a specific audience. So, I’d like to have examples of where the\* target audience\*- being YOU- could hear the dog whistle in the public phrase. I am dubious. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/2 "2016-07-25T23:11:20Z")
Easily explained. You’re on a board with (some) pretty sophisticated people who know enough history to catch the references that might get past some other people. A lot of times the speaker will build enough ambiguity into what they say to provide them with deniability even if the “dog whistle” is pointed out. "I meant _this_ and if you think I meant _that_, then _you’re_ the one with the problem. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/3 "2016-07-25T23:12:26Z")
There was an identical thread to this last year posing it in exactly the same way and baiting for a grievance. Was it you? A dog whistle is what makes Donald the new enthusiasm for the KKK, white power fetishists and others. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/4 "2016-07-25T23:15:06Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Easily explained. You’re on a board with (some) pretty sophisticated people who know enough history to catch the references that might get past some other people. > > A lot of times the speaker will build enough ambiguity into what they say to provide them with deniability even if the “dog whistle” is pointed out. "I meant _this_ and if you think I meant _that_, then _you’re_ the one with the problem. So have\* you, being the intended recipient\*, ever heard a “dog whistle phrase”? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/5 "2016-07-25T23:19:53Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > There was an identical thread to this last year posing it in exactly the same way and baiting for a grievance. Was it you?. So, you got nothin? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/6 "2016-07-25T23:33:49Z")
Japan = “We should be \*\*normal \*\*like any other country” = _Time to abolish the pacifist parts of the Constitution (which I favor)_ Taiwan = “We should **diversify our economy** ” = _Time to reduce dependence on China" (which I favor)_ USA = “\*\*Merit-based \*\*approach to admissions” = _Time to abolish affirmative action (which I favor)_ ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/7 "2016-07-26T00:02:56Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > So, you got nothin? So it was you? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/8 "2016-07-26T00:41:15Z")
David Duke explicitly got the message implied by Trump’s Star-Of-David tweet. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/9 "2016-07-26T00:49:38Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > David Duke explicitly got the message implied by Trump’s Star-Of-David tweet. Per the OP, you were the target of that dog whistle? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/10 "2016-07-26T01:01:15Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Per the OP, you were the target of that dog whistle? Per the OP, “A Dog whistle is supposed to be something your fans can hear”, but “every time here on this board- it is always \*the opposition \*that can hear this supposedly secret phrase that ONLY has meaning to a specific audience.” So I guess I’m taking issue with that part, instead of getting to the bit that came up later. Though, having said that, that later bit was phrased like this: > [@](#): > > So, I’d like to have examples of where the\* target audience\*- being YOU- could hear the dog whistle in the public phrase. If you’re going to nitpick my reply, I guess I’m going to ask whether it’s legitimate to read a sentence minus a part of it that’s set off from the rest by parentheses or hyphens. It’s my understanding that, as a basic rule of grammar, a sentence _can_ be legitimately read in exactly that way: I’d Like To Have Examples Of Where The _Target Audience_ Could Hear The Dog Whistle In The Public Phrase. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/11 "2016-07-26T01:15:37Z")
From the OP. Not rocket science: \*But every time here on this board- it is always the opposition that can hear this supposedly secret phrase that ONLY has meaning to a specific audience. So, I’d like to have examples of where the target audience- being YOU- could hear the dog whistle in the public phrase. \* ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/12 "2016-07-26T01:17:53Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You know, I am rather suspicious of this. A Dog whistle is supposed to be something your fans can hear. > > _"in which certain phrases have a particular meaning to a segment of the audience that passes unnoticed by the rest. This allows a candidate to surreptitiously signal agreement with that group, without alienating the rest of the audience, among whom the ideas might be unpopular if plainly stated._" XKCD explained. > > _“Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup.”_ wiki > > But every time here on this board- it is always \*the opposition \*that can hear this supposedly secret phrase that ONLY has meaning to a specific audience. > > So, I’d like to have examples of where the\* target audience\*- being YOU- could hear the dog whistle in the public phrase. > > I am dubious. Just because some people are lousy at keeping their subtext suitably _sub_ doesn’t mean that subtext doesn’t exist or that people don’t try to deploy subtext as a conversational tool. Next time I hear an example I’ll link it for you. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/13 "2016-07-26T01:19:28Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > From the OP. Not rocket science: > > \*But every time here on this board- it is always the opposition that can hear this supposedly secret phrase that ONLY has meaning to a specific audience. > > So, I’d like to have examples of where the target audience- being YOU- could hear the dog whistle in the public phrase. \* Uh, yeah. And, from my post, my understanding of the basic rules of grammar tells me that a sentence containing a phrase set off by parentheses or hyphens can legitimately be read _minus_ said phrase set off by said parentheses or hyphens. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/14 "2016-07-26T01:34:51Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I am dubious. I’m dubious, too, because you seem to be deliberately misinterpreting the phrase. A dog whistle in modern political usage is merely a message transmitted through oblique language. It does not at any time mean that no one outside the intended audience can ever make sense of the language. Of course, if you went farther down the Wiki page you cited, you’d see exactly the examples you claim to be looking for. > [@](#): > > The phrase “states’ rights”, although literally referring to powers of individual state governments in the United States, was described in 2007 by David Greenberg in Slate as “code words” for institutionalized segregation and racism.[18] In 1981, former Republican Party strategist Lee Atwater, when giving an anonymous interview discussing the GOP’s Southern Strategy (see also Lee Atwater on the Southern Strategy), said:[19][20] > > ``` > You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968, you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger." > — Lee Atwater, Republican Party strategist in an anonymous interview in 1981 > > ``` > > U.S. law professor and author of the 2014 book Dog Whistle Politics Ian Haney-López described Ronald Reagan as “blowing a dog whistle” when the candidate told stories about “Cadillac-driving ‘welfare queens’ and ‘strapping young bucks’ buying T-bone steaks with food stamps” while he was campaigning for the presidency.[21][22][23] He argues that such rhetoric pushes middle-class white Americans to vote against their economic self-interest in order to punish “undeserving minorities” who, they believe, are receiving too much public assistance at their expense. According to López, conservative middle-class whites, convinced by powerful economic interests that minorities are the enemy, supported politicians who promised to curb illegal immigration and crack down on crime but inadvertently also voted for policies that favor the extremely rich, such as slashing taxes for top income brackets, giving corporations more regulatory control over industry and financial markets, union busting, cutting pensions for future public employees, reducing funding for public schools, and retrenching the social welfare state. He argues that these same voters cannot link rising inequality which has impacted their lives to the policy agendas they support, which resulted in a massive transfer of wealth to the top 1% of the population since the 1980s.[24] Maybe the intense rebuttal you’re getting here is because of _your_ misuse of language, not that of others. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/15 "2016-07-26T02:10:25Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’m dubious, too, because you seem to be deliberately misinterpreting the phrase. > > A dog whistle in modern political usage is merely a message transmitted through oblique language. It does not at any time mean that no one outside the intended audience can ever make sense of the language. > > Of course, if you went farther down the Wiki page you cited, you’d see exactly the examples you claim to be looking for. > Maybe the intense rebuttal you’re getting here is because of _your_ misuse of language, not that of others. I am not saying that \*no one \*outside the intended audience can hear it. What I am saying there is no evidence of the intended audience hearing it. And those, again, are examples of someone OUTSIDE the intended audience “hearing” something _that on the surface_ isnt there. The Lee Atwater interview is completely taken out of context. Listen to it in it’s entirely sometime. I have. That’s by no means what he meant. But again- have **you** , _being the intended audience-_ ever heard a dogwhistle? It seems odd that no-one can hear them but the opposition. :dubious: So, tell me when you have heard a dogwhistle intended for _you._ ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/16 "2016-07-26T02:22:17Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I am not saying that \*no one \*outside the intended audience can hear it. > > What I am saying there is no evidence of the intended audience hearing it. Again – since you’re just putting that in a sentence – David Duke hears just fine. > [@](#): > > It seems odd that no-one can hear them but the opposition. :dubious: David Duke wasn’t the opposition; he was the audience. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/17 "2016-07-26T02:24:14Z")
Most of us don’t see ourselves as gullible or bigoted enough to be a dog whistle recipient. It is a pejorative term, both for the thing itself and it’s target. The closest we get is to make threads about it I suppose. But having said that if you say that’s my kind of people when you hear Donald, and you are a white supremacist, you have been dog whistled. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/18 "2016-07-26T02:25:35Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You know, I am rather suspicious of this. A Dog whistle is supposed to be something your fans can hear. > > _"in which certain phrases have a particular meaning to a segment of the audience that passes unnoticed by the rest. This allows a candidate to surreptitiously signal agreement with that group, without alienating the rest of the audience, among whom the ideas might be unpopular if plainly stated._" XKCD explained. > > _“Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup.”_ wiki > > But every time here on this board- it is always \*the opposition \*that can hear this supposedly secret phrase that ONLY has meaning to a specific audience. > > So, I’d like to have examples of where the\* target audience\*- being YOU- could hear the dog whistle in the public phrase. > > I am dubious. Your OP includes several explanations of dog whistles, none of which states that it has to be secret or exclusive. There are many reasons it’s the opposition that usually calls it out, but the simplest one is that the sympathizers already understood the signal. When George W. Bush was considering candidates to fill the SCOTUS vacancy, he said “I’m not going to nominate someone who would uphold the Dred Scott decision.” Most of us (at least I) needed someone to explain that some pro-lifers regard this 150-year-old slavery decision as a possible attack vector against Roe vs. Wade, but pro-lifers got the message immediately. That’s why you always hear the opposition highlighting dog-whistle politics - the sympathizers see it as straightforward communication possibly softened by political correctness. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/19 "2016-07-26T02:42:04Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Again – since you’re just putting that in a sentence – David Duke hears just fine. > > David Duke wasn’t the opposition; he was the audience. You are David Duke?:dubious: Again, give me an example of a dogwhistle **meant for you** _that you heard._ No one seems to be able to do this. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898/20 "2016-07-26T02:42:59Z")
> [@](#): > > David Duke explicitly got the message implied by Trump’s Star-Of-David tweet. > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Again – since you’re just putting that in a sentence – David Duke hears just fine. If you’re going to insist on this… prove it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-whistles/760898.md?page=2)