imo, the "dog whistle" concept is very damaging to a persons perception of reality.

The implication is that there does not exist a gradient between (or even orthogonality to) left and right. If something is just a little bit short of left, it's considered a "dog whistle", implicative that it's all the way to the right now.

I know a lot of people who have voted blue their entire lives that are against cancel culture btw.

The problem with "cancel culture" is that it's so ill-defined, it's intended to match with whatever people have in their heads that they don't like. Opposing cancel culture is even less well defined. Are you saying that people shouldn't be allowed to boycott things they don't like?

The funniest part about "cancel culture" is that the same people who scream it's the worst and shouldn't be okay are the people who wanted to boycott the NFL when colin kaepernick kneeled to protest black violence.

The truth is, it's only "Cancel Culture" if it's against something they like

Or the argument that it’s somehow a new thing - like evangelical Christians weren’t taking issue with Monty Python sketches or sex and violence going back to the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

> Are you saying that people shouldn't be allowed to boycott things they don't like?

No, people should be allowed to do as they please (assuming they aren't abusing the earth or other living beings), and boycotts are a useful tool for change.

But it's becoming the first tool people reach for, and that's not healthy. Kind of how force is sometimes necessary, but should be avoided as much as possible. Someone who jumps to force immediately is a scary person to empower.

Also, there is a noteworthy difference between boycotting something you don't like and boycotting whichever power is capable of cancelling the thing you don't like. It's definitely necessary at times, but it's not a great means to an end.

My mother read me this book as a child (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book) and the fact that overt force will be met with greater overt force until someone hits a limit (and nobody really wins) has stuck and has been very consistently reinforced in my life. I see cancel culture as pretty obvious show of force and no matter how much people might inflate its victories and minimize its short-comings, I see it netting out to roughly zero. It really just enables worse behavior on both sides.

If the alternative to boycotts is actual use of force, I’ll take the boycotts every time.

That isn't what dog whistles are at all. Dog whistles are espousing a stance whose plain meaning is innocous or absent which references a more sinister agenda behind the face value. "Family values" is a meaninglessly broad term taken literally but is used as a mask for homophobia or "fourteen words" or "replacement as a coded references to Neo-nazi codes and then when informed of why people are upset refuse to apologize like someone who was unaware of the obscure connection as it would disavow those they were reaching out to but pretending not to and act like the people being upset about a reference to neo nazis are the "crazy" ones.

To claim it implies a lack of a gradient is a bit of a slip given the absense of left wing practice of it and looks a lot like projective assumptions "everyone steals" from a serial thief to claim it is unfair they are the only one arrested for stealing.

Ironically 'dog whistle' is the liberal word of the moment.

Maybe we are all affected and should try to just judge things on their own merit, without looking for which side they belong to to..

If said things were written to express their arguments solely on merit and accuracy, that would be true. But understanding implicit bias and/or the reasons behind the framing of certain arguments from a source is necessary, in my opinion, because several, if not most, of the content we consume is crafted disingenuously. To judge the merit without understanding a dimension of it is just making an uninformed judgement.

I don't think dog whistle is the correct term for this; the language isn't coded. Virtue signaling might be a better term for what you're describing.

"Shibboleth" might be the better term. It's a word or phrase used to signal membership in a group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth

I would even go further and put it in the category of conservative victimhood porn. Their narrative is that the Mailchimp "arbiters of truth" are going to come and censor your conservative viewpoint which is already "continuously targeted." It annoys me that this tabloid style content consistently filters to the top of HN, especially with the number of self described "free thinkers" here that think they are immune from political bias.

Yes. That's what tabloid writing sounds like - trying a bit too hard to arouse emotion in the reader. The left-wing tabloid articles have it too but with their own unique language.

What New York Post story?