As part of Pacific McGeorge’s annual Diversity Week, Berkeley Law Professor, Ian Haney-Lopez, presented his book, Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class.
Lopez began by sharing common examples of racial innuendos: “Thug,” “Alien,” “Minorities,” “The Taxpayers.” Like a dog whistle, these terms do not specifically reference race, but trigger a sharp reaction from the public. It is political code.
Lopez believes politicians use coded racial innuendo to influence the electorate, legislators, and the courts, and to ultimately “hijack democracy.” In effect, Lopez claims, dog whistle politics have shifted power to the elite, deconstructed the middle class, and resulted in the largest wealth gap in income inequality since just before the Great Depression.
The mantra of dog whistle politics is simple: fear the powerless, and do not worry about what the powerful are doing.
The essence of dog whistle politics is not simply latent racism in political parties. Rather, it is a strategic decision to use race as the basis upon which to campaign for votes. Barry Goldwater, the Republican Presidential candidate in 1964 and quintessential “Rugged Individual,” adopted a dog whistle philosophy when campaigning against New-Deal liberal, Lyndon Johnson.
Quoting a columnist who attended Republican strategy meetings, Lopez highlights Goldwater’s own statement: “A good many, perhaps a majority of the party’s leadership, envision substantial political gold to be mined in the racial crisis by becoming in fact, though not in name, the White Man’s Party.”
Executing this veiled strategy, Goldwater campaigned in the south using phrases like “State’s Rights,” which was code for the southern states’ right to resist integration. He talked about “freedom of association,” which was code for white business owners’ right to exclude blacks. He sought to earn votes through racial appeals that were not racial on the surface.
Although crushed in the election, Goldwater won five deep-south states that were dominated by die-hard democrats. These victories illustrated that dog whistle appeals could convince die-hard democrats to vote republican.
Ever since Goldwater paved the way in 1964, every winning electoral candidate before President Obama has used coded racial appeals. While campaigning against welfare, Ronald Reagan called out the “young buck who gets a steak,” referring to strong black males who were capable of working, but would rather work the system to eat a steak on the government’s dollar.
Regan and other candidates (mostly Republicans) have used dog whistles to earn middle class votes, win elections, slash taxes for the rich, cut social services, and help the wealthy gain control of regulation. Lopez believes dog whistle politics have shifted so much power to the wealthy and away from the middle-class that they contributed to the great recession of 2008.
Dog whistle politics demonize the government and make the middle class believe that government is the enemy, thereby “stealing votes” and eroding the middle class.
Lopez feels we must call out dog whistle politics when we see it. Instead of using race as a tool to gain power, we need to openly disucss race and decode the language politicians use to manipulate the vote.
View a shortned version of Professor Lopez’s presentation at TedXUOregon:
