A political dog whistle is “a coded message for a target group and no one else” (Allen). Politicians use dog whistles to covertly express support for controversial values. This rhetorical strategy allows dog whistlers to reach audiences with similar beliefs without alienating everybody else. Since dog whistles are invisible to most of the public, they are often discovered long after they are first used. Revisiting the politics of the past armed with the ability to identify historical dog whistles can provide one with significant insight into politicians’ true platforms and agendas.
In my textual Something New, I have compiled some famous examples of dog whistles in a newspaper format. I haven’t decoded the dog whistles, but I have pointed them out in red. What would happen if people said what they actually meant on the news front page?
Works Cited
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, New Press, The, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/davidson/detail.action?docID=5651869.
Allen, Henry. “Red Meat for Political Junkies: Dog Whistles, Walk-Backs and Washington Handshakes.” Wall Street Journal (1923-), 04 Sept. 2014, p. 1. ProQuest. Web. 14 Mar. 2026.
Baugh, L. Sue. “Southern strategy”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 16 Feb. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Southern-strategy. Accessed 1 May 2026.
Clinton, Bill. “Opinion | How We Ended Welfare, Together.” The New York Times, 22 Aug. 2006, www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/opinion/22clinton.html.
Cosgrove, Ben. “LIFE on the Campaign Trail: Classic Photos.” LIFE, www.life.com/history/politics-life-magazine-photos-from-the-campaign-trail/.
Haney Lopez, I. (2013). Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.
Perlstein, Rick. “Exclusive: Lee Atwater’s Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy.” The Nation, 13 Nov. 2012, www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/tnamp/.
Reston, Maeve. “Romney attributes loss to ‘gifts’ Obama gave minorities,” Los Angeles Times, November 15, 2012.
Weinger, Mackenzie. “Bill O’Reilly: ‘The white establishment is now the minority,’” Politico, November 6, 2012.
