"Code Words and Dog Whistle Politics" Examples: 2012

EXAMPLES AND ANALYSIS: 2012 "Code Words and Dog Whistle Politics"

"Notice both TIME Magazine and The Atlantic are calling the 401(k) tax deduction now a subsidy. It's a government subsidy. That's important because that means it's the government's money. You didn't earn it, the government allowed you to have it, and calling it a "subsidy" is a dog whistle term for people. "Why are we subsidizing the rich?" is the shout from middle America and central California. "Why are we subsidizing the rich, Mabel?" So a tax deduction is now a subsidy."

-- Radio pundit Rush Limbaugh, November 29, 2012.

Comment: This is "dog whistle" or "code words" rhetoric.

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But yet we find candidates like Newt Gingrich who want to throw fuel and matches and fire to develop sort of an explosiveness in this country that is unnecessary. To suggest President Obama is the food stamp president has underlying suggestions.

-- Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), January 18, 2012.

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Political commentator Martin Bashir: Now, listen to some of the things that are being said by these Republican candidates.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA): President Obama is the most effective food stamp president in American history.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA): I don't want to make [blah? black?] people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money, I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.
Bashir: There's nothing subtle about Newt Gingrich or Mr. Santorum. Their comments are clearly targeted at the President, who's black, and at other members of society ... Newt Gingrich is never going to win the Republican nomination, but he could badly damage race relations in the process. So here is a simple plea: Let's cut out the food stamps rhetoric right now before things get any worse.

--  January 6, 2012.

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This really is the kind of dog-whistle politics that the Republican party has used to lure our people, the white working class, over to their party, to tell them over and over that money's being -- their money's being given to black people when in fact, as we all know, it's been given to rich people.

-- Political commentator Joan Walsh, January 6, 2012.