DOG WHISTLE

One of the biggest cliches in politics is just warping what we hear.

- TIM MURPHY

REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST Lee Atwater is the godfather of the modern political dog whistle. Not because he invented, or even appears to have used, the term-but because in a 1981 interview he offered a concise description.

"By 1968 you can't say '[n-word]'that hurts you, [it] backfires, so you say stuff like, uh, 'forced busing,' 'states' rights,"" Atwater explained. "You're getting so abstract. Now you're talking about 'cutting taxes." 

He was speaking anonymously as a staffer in Ronald Reagan's White House. He was also telling on himself. Atwater got his start working for the archsegregationist Strom Thurmond. Later, as a campaign manager for George H.W.Bush, he would push the Willie Horton ad, which tied Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis to a Black man who committed multiple violent crimes while out on furlough from prison. On the surface, it was just facts. On a different frequency, it was screaming at white voters about a racist trope.