| This blog post[1] tried to figure out a number back in 2016. (Warning: that's not the only thing the post discusses; avoid if you've already had too much culture war.) To quote: "My guess is that the number of organized white supremacists in the country is in the very low five digits." It's just the thoughts of some random blogger, not an academic study, but he lays out his methodology in detail and it seems reasonable. Of course that was four years ago, but the estimate seems consistent with the evidence from the 2017 Charlottesville rally, which only drew a few hundred attendees despite being the biggest, most prominent and well-publicised white supremacist rally in the USA for decades. Of course this is only talking about active, open white supremacists, not the full gamut of racism. But I find it hard to believe that the number of Richard-Spencer-style racists in the USA is anything other than tiny - far too small to have any influence at the ballot box. And by the way, does anyone seriously think that there was ever any chance of these people voting for Hillary Clinton (or Joe Biden) in the first place? To quote the same blog post: > Dog whistling seems to be the theory that if you want to know what someone really believes, you have to throw away decades of consistent statements supporting the side of an issue that everyone else in the world supports, and instead pay attention only to one weird out-of-character non-statement which implies he supports a totally taboo position which is perhaps literally the most unpopular thing it is possible to think. > And then you have to imagine some of the most brilliant rhetoricians and persuaders in the world are calculating that it’s worth risking exposure this taboo belief in order to win support from a tiny group with five-digit membership whose support nobody wants, by sending a secret message, which inevitably every single media outlet in the world instantly picks up on and makes the focus of all their coverage for the rest of the election. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-w... |
Since there are so many possible deconstructions (as many as there are readers), it also means that it's a game that the speaker cannot win. Someone will always be able to deconstruct what you say to be a dogwhistle, no matter what you say. So the only possible approach is to just ignore them, because if you try to play their game, you are going to lose, and to continue to lose.