Initial disclaimer: I’m very much a progressive person.
Recently listening to podcasts like Heavyweight, Reply All, Invisibilia, Underunderstood etc, I noticed that while the episode - or podcast overall - is investigative journalism lite, something incidental but progressive might happen (using the correct pronouns for a trans person, for example.) I also recently rewatched the Some More News episode on why conservative comedy is so awful, which sparked my pondering.
So… while I’m not interested in veering to the right, this did get me wondering what content might be out there that I’ve not been exposed to at all. Are there (relatively) apolitical podcasts out there that mirror those lite journalism examples above?
Wouldn’t that count as political?
Not explicitly. The whole point of dog whistles is that they’re not supposed to sound political so someone can hide their intentions from people who don’t know and signal their beliefs to the in-group.
What’s an example of an apolitical dog whistle that cannot be identified as right or left wing?
Dog whistles are political, but they don’t sound political. They could be used in apolitical podcasts to signal the host’s political affiliation without explicitly stating it.
OK, what’s an example of one?
Using “diversity” or “inclusive” as a bad word.
Using 88 without reason (or 1488).
There’s also people using the term “Monday” to refer to black people. (So they can say “I hate Mondays” and stuff without it being immediately obvious).
“Those [kinds of] people” is another pretty transparent one.
In Canada, there was “traditional Anglo-Saxon words”, lol
None of these seem apolitical to me. I would associate most of these with right wing philosophies. I was specifically looking for examples of apolitical dog-whistles.
My point was that they could be used in an apolitical podcast to send the signal to the in-group (aka. The right wing). They don’t necessarily sound political to someone who doesn’t know what they mean.