“It’s just a saying” when its “innocently” used by the Left.Who have developed a very useful hypersensitivity and are attuned to hearing the dog whistle code words everywhere.They will pounce on then whenever and wherever they theoretically find them. Remember the Black Gongresscritter who years ago made a big deal out of someone using the word “niggardly” to mean stingy (which it does) because it sounded like “the N word”?
Actually it happened in the Washington DC City Government (1998) when a senior white staffer used the word and was beset by black colleagues and staffers as using a racist term. The newly elected Mayor Anthony Williams (non-white) succumbed to the pressure and fired the victim, David Howard.
The irony became much hotter when it turned out that Mr Howard was also a member of a victim group, being an out-of-the-closet homosexual and the most senior one in the DC City Government at that. Mr Howard was rehired shortly afterwards when a 'review' came to this conclusion; "The review also showed that one of our employees did misunderstand Mr Howard to have used a racial epithet.''