On dog whistles

[scarlettina]

It seems like more and more this year, the Republican presidential candidates are communicating in dog whistles. It's usually Donald Trump, who seems to think that any religion other than his own is weird and un-American. I've heard him talk; it's consistent and it's remarkable that a New Yorker would talk this way--except for Trump, who

Comments

[joycemocha]

Yeah, and while the Democratic debate was raucous, with people speaking over each other, it was still more of what a debate should be. Respect for each other, no nasty personal jabs.

[herself_nyc]

I actually agreed with Adam Gopnik in his piece about that on the New Yorker website that it wasn't an anti-semitic dogwhistle, that Cruz was actually insulting everybody in New York (and though Gopnik doesn't say so, the entire liberal Northeast) with that remark. I honestly don't think Cruz was thinking about Jews when he said it. Which isn't to say I don't believe Cruz might well be an anti-semite, but that he was firing a much bigger gun than that.

[scarlettina]

I'll have to read the Gopnick piece later, but on the face of it, I can certainly see that. Which just makes Cruz a bigger idiot than I thought he was in the first place.

[varina8]

Thank you for watching and recapping the GOP debates. I find the pool of Republican contenders so repulsive and depressing that I've been unable to watch. I've been following politics since I was a teenager; for the first time, I can't do it. And that makes me sad.