Whistlin' Yankee

In politics, there's a concept called a "Dog Whistle." That's when a politician says something that most people will take little notice of, but one particular group will interpret positively. An example that I heard once was that when George W Bush talked about abortion, he liked to say that we need to encourage "a culture of life." To most people, this just sounds like flowery rhetoric. But staunch Catholics would recognize it as a phrase then-Pope John-Paul II used. Thus, Catholics felt like Bush was catering to them, but no one else realized it, so no one freaked out that he was following the Vatican's agenda.

And that's how Dog Whistles work: they allow a politician to lobby a particular group, even if it would normally be damaging to be seen appealing to that group. Like actual dog whistles, only the intended audience hears the message. If others hear the message, that can cause problems. In Canada's last federal election, the Conservatives pushed their religious abuse hotline, hoping racists would see it as anti-Islamic, while others would just interpret it as a civil-rights issue. Unfortunately for them, lots of people took the racial interpretation, with disastrous electoral consequences.

But we might be seeing the end of the concept. One of the defining characteristics of the Trump campaign is that he doesn't use Dog Whistles. If he wants to score points with voters who believe socially-unacceptable things, he just says them. This seems to work for him because it energizes enough voters to more than makes up for the ones he loses with the controversial remark. Plus there are a lot of voters who admire his boldness so much that they can forgive him for any unpopular quotes.

At least, that's what it seems. On closer inspection, he does use Dog Whistles, they just don't work the way you might expect. That's the thesis in a recent article from Trump's latest bogeyman, The Washington Post. They point out that Trump often seems to imply strange things going on that no one knows about, using phrases like "What's going on there?" Such questions seem out of character for him, since he usually portrays himself as the smart guy wth all the answers. But what that phrase does is allow supporters to insert whatever conspiracy they want. That's not to say that all Trump supporters are conspiracy buffs (though I dare say he has that market cornered too.) But he does appeal to people who feel powerless in a world that is fixed to favour the powerful.

That also helps to explain Trump's latest I-can't-believe-he-said-that moment. He implied that soldiers in Iraq profited off of America's rebuilding of the country. (To be fair, Trump claimed he was refering to Iraqi soldiers, rather than Americans.) Normally it would be unthinkable for a Republican to criticize the U.S. military. But in this case, he's appealing to people who feel like those with more power are pulling a fast one on them. That anger can be aimed at companies, government, and apparently even the military.