The Far-Right Rhetoric of Dog Whistles: Settler Feelings and Unspeakable Acts

This open access book and examines how far-right dog whistles fuel real-world colonial violence in Settler America. Contemporary attacks like the El Paso Walmart and Buffalo Tops shootings are not isolated acts of extremism—they are direct extensions of an ongoing settler colonial logic, echoing historical massacres like Sand Creek in their targeting of Indigenous, Black, and other racialized communities.

These contemporary acts are distinct: individuals move from coded signal to violence with little to no rational deliberation in between. Far-right media and rhetoric have become sophisticated emotional activation systems, bypassing reason entirely. Therefore, dog whistles operate on multiple registers simultaneously—triggering immediate reactions of fear, anger, and disgust while also tapping into a deeper, longer-simmering sense of grievance embedded in settler culture.

The result is a media and rhetorical landscape where coded language activates violent political upheaval, manufacturing division, justifying elimination, and mobilizing violence all while maintaining a veneer of plausible deniability. This book offers an urgent framework for understanding how that signaling operates, why it is so effective, and what it means for how we study political communication, media, and the ongoing project of settler colonialism in America.

Michael Lechuga is an Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism at the University of New Mexico, where he teaches and researches Rhetoric, Settler Colonial Studies, and Cultural Studies. His work focuses on how settler colonial logics are mapped onto Turtle Island and how anti-colonial thinkers resist them. He more recently investigates the relationship between technology, new media, and Indigenous ways of knowing across politics, media, and the classroom. He is the author of Visions of Invasion (University Press of Mississippi) and co-editor of Migrant World Making (Michigan State University Press).

Michael Lechuga is an Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism at the University of New Mexico, where he teaches and researches Rhetoric, Settler Colonial Studies, and Cultural Studies. His work focuses on how settler colonial logics are mapped onto Turtle Island and how anti-colonial thinkers resist them. He more recently investigates the relationship between technology, new media, and Indigenous ways of knowing across politics, media, and the classroom. He is the author of Visions of Invasion (University Press of Mississippi) and co-editor of Migrant World Making (Michigan State University Press).