I'm Bill Moyers. It's good to have your ear. This week on Moyers & Company, how

dog whistle politics use race to influence your vote. Historian Ian Haney Lopez breaks

the code.

Dog Whistle politics doesn't come out of animus at all. It doesn't come out of some desire

to hurt minorities. It comes out of a desire to win votes.

It's racism as a strategy.

It's cold.

It's calculating.

It's considered.

It's the decision to achieve one's own ends.

Here winning votes by stirring racial animosity.

This demonization of minorities has led people to demonize the federal government and

indeed to demonize government generally because government itself is now seen as a problem

insofar as it's seen as by and for minorities.

Thanks for joining us.

Welcome.

A dog whistle doesn't sound like much to your ears or mine,

but it will make the neighborhood canines come running faster than you can shout lassie or

Rintin10. This whistle sends its signal at a frequency only dogs can hear, which makes it an apt metaphor for this

new book, Dog Whistle Politics by my guest Ian Haney Lopez. He's broken the code on the

racist politics of the last 50 years as politicians mastered the use of dog whistles to

turn Americans against each other while turning America over to plutocrats.

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