A Taxonomy of Right-Wing Dog Whistles

[Nevilledog]

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The Atlantic
@TheAtlantic
Masking is child abuse. Socialism is coming. Vladimir Putin, misunderstood guy. "Once you start hearing these phrases, you’ll notice them everywhere for what they are—coded in-group language designed to stir very specific reactions," @MollyJongFast writes:

theatlantic.com
A Taxonomy of Right-Wing Dog Whistles
Listen closely and you’ll hear these phrases everywhere.
9:15 AM · Mar 4, 2022

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/taxonomy-right-wing-dog-whistles/622930/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/9F78W

The first time I witnessed the birth of a right-wing talking point, I was sitting in a crowded ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, in National Harbor, Maryland. This was the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, and I was listening to Sebastian Gorka deliver remarks that fell somewhere on the spectrum from venting to fomenting.

There he was in his three-piece suit, voice booming: “They want to take your pickup truck. They want to rebuild your home. They want to take away your hamburgers.” As I jotted down the line about the hamburgers, a sudden sense of unreality came over me.

Democrats want to take my hamburgers? It seemed too preposterous a threat to alarm even the most willing rube. Knowing the origin of the line was perhaps revealing, but made it no less ridiculous. Republicans had taken left-wing concerns about the environmental effects of factory farming and animal slaughter and contorted those worries, casting the Democrats as not just an anti-hamburger party, but a coalition of hamburger thieves—hamburglars, if you will.

That’s the secret of these GOP talking points: They’re sticky enough to be memorable, they’re designed to elicit an emotional response, they typically target an ideologically symbolic bogeyman, and they contain a sliver of truth that can be blown up into something completely unrecognizable.

*snip*

[IbogaProject]

1. We have to get stronger with our quips

I think the wealthy donor class has tried to keep the races closer and favored more 'centrist' (conservative) candidates on our side. They also prefer candidates who are softer spoken. I feel this is because if we were as good with the simple soundbites we'd have much higher success as 60-70% want liberal policies. The wealthy don't, and until we fix campaign finance they will keep moving the overton window to the right away from most of our needs and desires.

[Walleye]

2. The problem is we are interested in governing their only interest is wisecracks

[underpants]

3. And the cult hears the daily talking points all day everyday.

From Fox in the morning to talk radio and back to Fox at night.

The hamburger line was out before Gorka used it a CPAC but it was the first Molly had heard it. Love her twitter by the way. From a joke telling standpoint CHEESEBURGER would be better. The soft H on hamburger doesn’t strike like the CH would but it works for them.

Secret bio labs in Ukraine - I think that’s on their outer fringes right now but it’s not a long walk into their mainstream.

[Celerity]

4. K & R for visibility