[Ads-l] "She's a devil" -- dog whistle?

[Joel Berson]

D----d T---p has more than once called Hillary Clinton a, or the, "devil," perhaps in an attempt to attract fundamentalists and evangelicals who might otherwise be repelled by his irreligiosity and lewdness.  Who are the female allies of the devil?  Is "devil" a dog whistle for calling Hillary a "witch"?

As Stacy Schiff writes in _The Witches: Suspicion, Betrayal, and Hysteria in 1692 Salem_ (2015), in an era when much of the natural world was mysterious and unexplainable it was convenient and reassuring to blame untoward events on witchcraft.  Is the 17th-18th-century world of the white English North American colonies what T---p wants to return to when he says "make America strong again"?

Joel


------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org