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Reader question: Please explain the term “dog whistle politics”? My comments: Great question, as dog whistles are heard everywhere these days, a time when some deep-rooted social problems appear to be coming to a boil. Income inequality (everywhere), immigration (Europe), race (America) and so forth. As a result, politicians are becoming more cunning and sophisticated in talk because, let’s face it, theirs is no easy line of trade. Okay, dog whistle politics essentially refers to a form of politician’s rant that’s aimed at a particular audience. You should have a general idea of the politician’s rant, their form of speech. Any form of officialese or gobbledygook by the politician counts, generally any speech which is so full of meaningless jargon that whole thing doesn’t sound like making a lot of sense to members of the general public. Dog whistle is one form of the politician’s rant or talk, referring to a coded message aimed at a particular group in the audience. Question is, of course, why dog whistle? Presumably when dogs communicate with each other, some of their guttural wails or squeals are inaudible to the human ear, because we humans can only hear sounds within a certain range of frequency. Hence metaphorically, when people are described as talking “dog whistles”, they are talking to a particular group people, by using words that only they understand. Other people hear the words, but do not get the hidden message. | 
