From the Dog Whistle to the Dog Scream: The Republican Party's (Ab)Use of Discriminatory speech in Electoral Campaigns and Party Politics

• Main Author: Luiza-Maria Filimon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National University of Political Science and Public Administration, Bucharest 2016-12-01
• Series: Romanian Journal of Society and Politics
• Subjects: dog whistle politics; electoral politics; strategic racism; the Republican Party; party politics; 2016 U.S. primary elections; Donald Trup
• Online Access: http://rjsp.politice.ro/sites/default/files/7.%20filimon.pdf

The 2016 U.S. presidential election can be described as nostalgic. On one hand, there was the fond remembrance of the Clinton administration characterized by a period of economic prosperity which overshadowed the more disastrous aftermath of various policies (the crime bill, the welfare reform, the Defense of Marriage Act, the repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, etc.). On the other, the 2016 election brought to the surface a dormant longing for a privileged past rooted in open discrimination, inequality, segregation, and white supremacy, echoed by Donald Trump’s campaign. The Republican candidate had won the party’s nomination by openly and devoutly proselytizing against minority groups that allegedly threaten the fabric, integrity, and security of the United States. The more ethnic stereotypical caricatures and outright lies he employed in his speeches, the more successful his primary campaign was and the more he unnerved the Republican establishment, the general electorate, and the media. Yet Donald Trump’s campaign was not innovative by any means. Instead, as this study will argue, Trump’s electoral success during the primary elections can be in part attributed to the Republican Party’s decades-long history of strategic racism that has been instrumental in grooming the party’s base into Donald Trump’s supporters. In order to showcase that Trump’s ascendancy to the top of the Republican primary election was not a political accident, but a natural progression of decades-old officially sanctioned electoral policies, the study analyzes the origins behind the “dog whistle” practice, based on the model of strategic racism advanced by Ian Haney López. In conducting this research, I provide examples from U.S. public officials – past and present – and also highlight the role of the media in the propagation and cultivation of dog whistle politics.