I've replaced it with 'media' at the top. When I say something like that, I just mean the big media websites and they way they cover often-sensational stories.
Excuse me? MSM, a common acronym for the widespread and uncontroversial term "mainstream media", is now a "far-right dogwhistle"? I must have missed that memo.
I can only imagine the bubble you must live in if you think that the "far right" are the only people who see reason to distrust mainstream media.
I am a deeply liberal American. MSM is not a far right dog whistle in the US.
Words are indirect references to ideas and don't have any meaning without a receiver. All of these words have to be contextualized based on the speaker and receiver.
The right are known for lying with the truth which makes a good amount of their rhetoric stick.
Washington is a swamp, almost any American will agree no matter which side, that's why the statement is powerful and effective.
The MSM in the US is irresponsible. Again regardless of which side you are on, you generally understand that US Media is owned by billionaires and corporations or at the very least people who don't have your interest at heart and want to manipulate you rather than inform you. It is not a far right dog whistle at all so much as a statement towards the general non-quality and lack of journalistic integrity in American's most prominent media. The left acknowledges the existence of "MSM" and blames them for giving the previous president attention and therefore power. The real difference is what MSM is actually referring to. One side generally means "all cable news but fox news" and the other generally means "all chiefly advertisement supported news you could find a newspaper of or see on cable."
Woke is a word that around the times of George Floyd meant something to the effect of "waking up to the idea of systemic racism and acknowledgement of it's generational consequences." Now it is largely a word used to describe "politically correct" policies or social policies that are contradictory to radical fundamentalist Christianity.
I think you are probably thinking about the previous president's fake news and lying press rhetoric which I don't think is a dog whistle because I don't think most conservative Americans are educated enough to tie that to its Nazi "Lügenpresse" heritage. You generally won't hear someone on the left say "fake news" or "lying press" unless it's in a mocking way.
Contextually all these things can be shibboleths based on context, which is probably more accurate for what you mean than dog whistle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth
Democrats are known for lying for sure. Establishment democrats like Pelosi, definitely. If that's what "left" references OK, I don't really disagree. AOC and Bernie, Stewart, and other progressives are not generally known for lying.
> which is why both sides are constantly bitching at each other.
No. This is some weird false equivalency thing that is popular with "enlightened" people. Some of Americas top brass (Mattis and Milley) have nearly explicitly said that republican dogma is to divide and conquer.
Mattis accused the president of pursuing a divisive strategy.
"[he] is the first president in my lifetime who does not
try to unite the American people— does not even pretend to try.
"Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences
of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the
consequences of three years without mature leadership," he said.
If one party explicitly tries to drive division, you are going to get it. It's no different than Ukraine's lack of unity with Russia. Of course there cannot be unity. Of course they are "bitching at each other." One is attempting to dictate to the other how it is going to be.
> reputation destruction
This is a load and a bad faith argument.
For one, it conflates reputation harm with reputation destruction in order to justify actions that should cause reputational harm. Second, when there is "destruction", it usually follows doubling down on the anti-social behavior that caused the reputational harm in the first place.
A world where reputations can be harmed is absolutely a better world. You can argue that sometimes there is non-proportional harm, ok, but that's not the usual argument. "I am against cancelling" is too often equivalent to "I am against consequences."
The very same people against "canceling" will turn around and claim that a store theft or car window smashing should be punished progressively disproportionately until it is a real deterrent to crime including death. Reputational harm until it is a deterrent to the thing that caused the reputational harm is the very same principle.
It wasn't. The downvote told me that here is the place to be careful about saying thank you. Well, those who downvote against thank you will downvote anything.
No one has claimed that the term "mainstream media" has its origins in far right politics. The claim made upthread is that the term "mainstream media" is a dogwhistle term often employed by the right wing.
I will not be providing evidence of that, as ample enough evidence for that can be found easily with a simple internet search.
I really try to avoid getting sucked into political arguments online, but what you're saying is so absurd and deranged that I can't let it go.
First of all: what exactly do you think the term "dogwhistle" means? Are you suggesting that when RWers say "mainstream media", they really mean something else? To what are they referring?
Secondly, you're going to have to tell me what terms to search for because I just performed several "simple internet searches" and I see no evidence of what you're claiming.
Thirdly, what can be found easily with some simple searches is that "mainstream media" is an extremely common term that's widely used by everybody left, right and center.
E.g. here's Bernie Sanders talking about the "mainstream media":
Here's the Morning Star (a far-left newspaper that was originally founded by the Communist Party of Great Britain) talking about the "mainstream media":
>First of all: what exactly do you think the term "dogwhistle" means? Are you suggesting that when RWers say "mainstream media", they really mean something else? To what are they referring?
No. In fact, I explicitly said the opposite in my comment. Although the term was popularized by the right wing in reference to their belief in a vast leftist conspiracy controlling all forms of media (the thesis under which Fox News was born and the premise by which it claims to be the only valid news source for the right), obviously not every instance of every right winger using the term uses it within that context. However the context does exist and is often employed in right-wing speech.
But given your tone, the fact that you obviously didn't bother to read my comment in good faith, and your personal insults towards me, I won't be engaging with you or your comment any further.
