You are missing the point; yes, the point of a dogwhistle is to appear innocuous. Which is precisely why, sans supporting evidence, you cannot simply assume that innocuous speech is a dogwhistle. A term that only ever implies something badisn’t a dogwhistle. You have to have other patterns of behavior that back up interpreting the innocuous language as that… and you don’t.
You are missing the point; yes, the point of a dogwhistle is to appear innocuous. Which is precisely why, sans supporting evidence, you cannot simply assume that innocuous speech is a dogwhistle. A term that only ever implies something bad isn’t a dogwhistle. You have to have other patterns of behavior that back up interpreting the innocuous language as that… and you don’t.