The word “thug” (like ‘okay’) comes from India where the Thugees were less like the secret child labor cult from Indiana Jones and more like the ‘Travelers’ in the UK. While the violence of the Thugees was likely overstated, the blunt epithet became ideal for describing dumb and violent criminals.

In the BLM era, calling dumb violent criminals “thugs” is racist. So is saying anything negative about them.

Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson had whined that, “it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”

And now topping that, after the Super Bowl parade shootings,

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas claimed that Gov. Mike Parson describing the shooters as “thugs” is a “dog whistle in the most classic sense.”

The dog whistle is that they’re members of a cult of con artists in India?

Violent incidents like these keep happening because of the effort to protect criminals not only from being arrested or from going to prison, but even from having anyone say anything about them.

Calling violent thugs who randomly shoot people anything except “justice-involved youth” is considered a hate crime.

Meanwhile, violent thugs roam the streets committing actual crimes. And you don’t need to listen for a subsonic dog whistle to stop them. Just listen for the sounds of gunfire.