After an excruciating few days, the Romneyshambles is finally coming to an end as Mitt departs Britain, tail between his legs. It really has been gaffe-ridden, as he’s insulted Britain, he’s failed to sell tickets to his fundraiser, and he’s suggested we aren’t doing the Olympics very well (even a stopped clock…). But one of his “gaffes” has a decidedly darker undertone, when an unnamed aide was reported by the Telegraph to have commented that Romney would be a better President than Obama because only he understood the “shared Anglo-Saxon heritage” that Britain and America have.
This sort of statement is known in politics as a “dog whistle”. To most people, it looks innocuous, if a bit weird, but to its target audience – in this case, racists – it reads as a perfectly clear statement that Romney is better than Obama because he is white. It’s noticeable, for example, that Romney did not bring up the fact that Ed Miliband, the son of Polish Jewish migrants, also does not share an Anglo-Saxon heritage.
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