Editor’s note: the following is an excerpt from the author’s position paper on the candidacy of Renard Johnson, who is running to be El Paso’s next mayor. This is part one of a two-part series.
Dog whistle political rhetoric is coded language that may sound innocuous to some people but contains language designed to incite fear among voters. It is political messaging using coded language for speech that most politicians will not say out loud, but still want voters to understand what they mean. Donald Trump has provided many examples of the use of dog whistle language in elections. With him being the resumptive presidential candidate for the GOP in November, the candidates on the local November ballots may want use coded language to attract presidential voters to their campaigns.
Few know who Renard Johnson is, except that he is running to be El Paso’s next mayor. Because Johnson does not have name recognition among the voters, he announced early to help him gain traction in the minds of the voters. His marketing efforts now are about introducing him to the voters. His primary vehicle, at the moment, is social media and his campaign website.
It is not known whether Johnson is being advised by policy consultants or if he has created his policy positions himself, or with the help of family and friends, but his priorities, as listed on his website show naiveté about how city government works or he purposely hopes that he can deceive voters through carefully crafted language.
The language used by Johnson about his priorities demonstrates that he does not fully understand the limits of city government to address community problems. Under public safety, in between making El Paso, “America’s #1 safest city again,” Johnson uses language that, at best, can be construed as naiveté, or worse, is dangerous language.
The Dangerous Speech: A Practical Guide defines dangerous speech as language “aimed at groups,” speech that “promotes fear” and “is often false.”
El Pasoans “Shoulder The Majority Of The Burden For A National, Federal Failure,” Writes Johnson
Immigrants making their way to the United States through the southern border has been making headlines and has led to heated political debates across America. In the local race for mayor, Renard Johnson has taken a page out of the migrant rhetoric in what appears to be an attempt to gain the attention of the voters. It is not known why Johnson chose the language in his priority’s list – it could be because those helping him craft his election messaging do not understand the role of city government, or worse, the language was chosen because it is a national wedge issue used to reach voters. Because it is a national issue, Johnson may be hoping voters will not notice that as mayor, Johnson will have no authority over immigration, making his reference and the solution to the so-called “migrant crisis” nothing more than a dog whistle to El Paso’s voters.
As the presidential campaigns continue to heat up going into the November elections, the “migrant crisis” will continue to make headlines. It is these headlines that Renard Johnson appears to want to hijack for his campaign.
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On his campaign website, Johnson outlines five priorities he promises he will work on as El Paso’s next mayor. They are “economic development focused on good jobs,” “excellent quality of life,” “public safety,” “education and student retention,” and “access to affordable health care.”
It appears from his priorities list that either Johnson’s policy advisors are not from El Paso, do not understand the local political scene, or Johnson is hoping that El Paso’s voters would ignore that Johnson doesn’t understand how local government works and will vote for him.
Three of the five talking points that Johnson outlines in his priority list are issues that the mayor of El Paso has little control over. Johnson’s priority to address affordable health care by working “with local hospitals to help attract more doctors,” ignores the fact that two government entities are already doing that. The Texas Tech Health Sciences Center/Medical School and the University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) are two taxpayer funded entities who work to bring medical staffing to El Paso. Worse for Johnson is that as mayor, he would have no authority to bring medical professionals to El Paso. Johnson adds in his health priority that he “will expand services at low-cost community clinics to ensure uninsured El Pasoans have affordable options for health care.”
Either Johnson has forgotten or does not know that community health clinics are operated by UMC and not the city. Additionally, any expansion of healthcare services will come with an additional cost to the city’s taxpayers.
Johnson goes on to promise voters that he will be “supporting education and workforce training” to “lessen the brain drain” in El Paso. The City of El Paso does not run school districts, trade schools, colleges or the universities in the city. For workforce development, the city partners with Workforce Solutions, Border Plex, UTEP and then the school districts.” None are operated by the city government.
The “Migrant Crisis”
One priority that Renard Johnson has identified is “public safety.” Although Johnson, as mayor, would have some measure of influence over the El Paso Police Department, Johnson correlates public safety to the “migrant crisis,” offering a solution that already exists.
According to Johnson’s campaign website, he plans “to make El Paso America’s #1 safest city again” by working “with the federal government to address the migrant crisis, and use federal funds” so that nonprofits and “residents don’t shoulder the majority of the burden for a national, federal failure.”
What Renard Johnson is suggesting is what is happening today under the current mayor, Oscar Leeser. The city government is coordinating with federal authorities to address a federal issue – immigration – and leveraging federal dollars to offset the costs to the taxpayers to care for the migrants who are transiting through El Paso on their way to their final destinations.
Johnson acknowledges on his website statement that the issue of migration is a federal issue that must be addressed at the federal level. What Johnson neglects to point out is that the solution he offers is in place today. Johnson’s solution to the “migrant crisis” will just continue what is already in place.
According to the city’s Migrant Dashboard, the City of El Paso has been responding to migrants transiting through El Paso since 2018. In April 2022, migrants passing through El Paso began to surge. The city government responded to the problem by using emergency declarations since the city has no authority over immigration because it is a federal matter. However, the welfare of the migrants that federal authorities release in El Paso, as well as the migrants who bypassed immigration authorities becomes a local issue to assure the safety and welfare of the migrants, and that of the city’s residents.
On October 23, 2023, Mayor Oscar Leeser issued a statement to the news media discussing the city’s part in dealing with the transiting migrants. Leeser stated in the statement that the city “has conversations with all our federal partners” about the issues faced by the city in dealing with the migrants. In the statement, Leeser concluded that “the federal government has been a good partner for us, providing much needed federal funding to address the challenges we have faced during various surges of asylum seekers crossing through a broken immigration system.”
According to the city’s online Migrant Crisis frequently asked questions, the city pays for the costs related to the migrants’ welfare with “advanced federal funding provided through FEMA’s emergency food and shelter grant.”
According to FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program Awards, for FY 2024, as of April 12, FEMA has awarded $381,000 to Annunciation House, $150,000 to the Catholic Dioceses of El Paso, $90,000 to the El Paso Baptist Association, $822,804 to El Pasoans Fighting Hunger, $130,679 to the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande, $270,000 to the Opportunity Center for the Homeless, $100,000 to Reynolds House Non Profit Corporation, $480,000 to St. Ignatius Church, $4,542,014 to the County of El Paso and $2,042,014 to the City of El Paso. In total for fiscal year 2024, the federal government has allocated about $9 million (see notes below) to help the El Paso community attend to the needs of the migrants transiting through El Paso.
As Johnson’s priority states, both the local governments and nonprofits have been assisting the migrants. But what Johnson’s priority issue neglects to add is that the federal government has allocated federal funds to offset the costs to render assistance to the migrants.
What Renard Johnson says he will prioritize as mayor, “so our local NPOs and residents don’t shoulder the majority of the burden for a national, federal failure” is being addressed by local government officials today. Almost $9 million in federal funds have been allocated to the local governments and nonprofits this year.
Johnson’s public safety priority does not offer another solution and insinuates that the local taxpayers are “shoulder[ing] the majority of the burden,” which is not true.
Johnson’s Dog Whistle Endangers El Pasoans
The problem with Renard Johnson’s migrant rhetoric is first, that it falls outside the authority of the mayor, suggesting that Johnson’s use of it is nothing more than a dog whistle call, and second, that it takes a page directly out of Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric about the dangers migrants pose to our communities, by arguing that the taxpayers are shouldering “the majority of the burden.”
Using the immigration wedge issue is not new to American politics.
Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1751, “why should Pennsylvania founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of Anglifying them.” (see note below for the complete passage.) Trump takes the same rhetoric today when he admonishes that in America “we speak English.”
Offering a solution to the migrant crisis, that the city is already using, shows that Renard Johnson may not understand the limits of the political office he seeks, or worse, he is hoping that a dog whistle call to voters will get him elected.
Renard Johnson’s “migrant crisis” priority meets the definition of dangerous speech in that it is aimed at a group – the migrants, it promotes fear when Johnson insinuates that El Paso’s taxpayers are shouldering “the burden,” and that it is false because the solution offered by him is already in place in El Paso. “Audiences are more vulnerable” to false statements “when they can be duped into believing what is false.” In the case of Johnson’s argument that one of his priorities is to correct the nonexistent problem of the “migrant crisis” using language that fools voters into correlating high taxes with the migrants making their way through El Paso. By binding taxes with the migrant crisis, Johnson’s priority suggests migrants are the cause of El Paso’s high taxes when, in reality, it is public policy, like quality of life that often leads to higher taxes.
The most unfortunate aspect of Renard Johnson’s use of the migrant crisis language is that instead of making “El Paso America’s #1 safest city again,” it may endanger El Pasoans. Dog whistle language led Patrick Crusius to El Paso in 2019 to kill 22 and injure 23 people at the Cielo Vista Walmart on August 3, 2019.
In his plea agreement with the federal government, Crusius admitted he was “motivated to kill Hispanics because they were immigrating to the United States.” Crusius further admitted that he selected “El Paso, a border city, as his target to dissuade Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants from coming to” the country.
Crusius was driven to kill people in El Paso because of dog whistle politics. Dog whistle politics clearly has a dangerous side to it, especially for El Pasoans.
Johnson likely does not intend to endanger El Pasoans with his priority wrapped in dangerous language, but his statement shows a disregard for the city he wants to represent as mayor. Renard Johnson either doesn’t understand why his priority is framed wrongly or he meant to use dangerous language to win an election.
About Polinotes
Polinotes is an archive of position papers, policy papers, white papers and opposition research covering topics about border issues written by Martín Paredes. Previous and future editions include papers on immigration, border security, The Politics of Beto, Activism & Politics: Verónica Carbajal, The History Of Migration Through El Paso, and México Inclusiveness: Its Afro-American and Indigenous Presidents And The Likelihood Of México’s First Female President. The full reports are available at Polinotes, which is a subscriber email newsletter.
Notes:
- Benjamin Franklin’s complete quote reads, “why should Pennsylvania founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.”
- Total FY 2024 FEMA allocation is: $9,008,511
IMHO, the issues facing the next mayor are: 1) fiscal responsibility to stop the orgy of debt funded vanity projects; 2) attention to environment because the air quality here is choking people, especially around BOTA and Marathon; 3) protecting open space and parks, e.g., the Rio Bosque that some people want to pave over; 4) listening more closely to neighborhood leaders who know more about what they need than city hall bureaucrats and country club bubbas.
This is an impossible agenda, too, because it hardly costs anything! No patronage largesse to spread around. Guaranteed you will lose on this platform!
it seems that as a candidate, Mr. Johnson has no idea what the role of mayor is under the council/city manager form of government – the buzz word “again” tells me a lot about his political leanings.