Dog Whistle Politics

You might wonder why the ancient Chinese built the Great Wall. It was to keep out Mexicans, Canadians and Mongols; it didn't work.

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William Rivers Pitt wrote in Truthout about "dog whistle" politics. "Dog whistle" is a new name for an older Republican practice. Wikipedia, Pitt notes, defines the term thusly: Dog-whistle politics, also known as the use of code words, is a type of political campaigning or speechmaking employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has a different or more specific meaning for a targeted subgroup of the audience. The term is an analogy to dog whistles built in such a way that humans cannot hear them due to their high frequency, but dogs can.

Pitt is concerned because of coded messages coming from places like Pat Robertson's "700 Club." Robertson has nothing but praise for attempted Adolf Hitler assassin Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a trained theologian.

Pitt wrote: "The interview basically stated that it is the holy work of any good Christian to assassinate a fascist tyrant, and given the serial ways these right-wing media people have used those exact terms to describe the President, it is a pretty short leap to realize the "700 Club" was essentially sending the [coded] message that whoever puts a bullet in Obama will be considered a saint on the level of Bonhoeffer."