Who, Exactly, Is “They”?

I’ve started noticing how often a sentence begins with the same word: they.

They think.
They want.
They’re trying to…

The phrase is usually delivered as if the reference is obvious — as if “the left” or “the right” were single, unified actors with shared intentions and beliefs, rather than vast and internally divided populations. Complexity disappears, intent is assigned, and disagreement begins to shift into something more ominous.

Once the category appears, specificity recedes. The individuals inside it — with their contradictions, private doubts, and internal disagreements — dissolve into a silhouette. What remains is a unified “they,” morally coherent and predictably dangerous.

This shift feels efficient. It clarifies. It reduces friction. It spares us the labor of distinction.

But efficiency is not the same as accuracy.

When language becomes efficient at the expense of precision, it begins to reshape how we see one another.

A recent example of this showed up in a song that’s been circulating widely — Pray for the Left. Some listeners see it as brave truth-telling. Others dismiss it as inflammatory.

The issue isn’t that the song is conservative. It’s not even that it’s provocative. It’s the way it uses language — specifically, the repeated use of “they.”

“They celebrated.”
“They want a civil war.”
“They say we deserve it.”
“They want you dead.”

Who is “they”?

The “they” is never defined. It does not need to be. It functions as a container — one large enough to absorb activists, politicians, online commentators, protesters, and anyone who has expressed hostility toward the speaker’s side. Millions of people merge into a single moral outline.

This rhetorical move is efficient. It saves the trouble of distinguishing between individuals, ideas, and contexts. Extreme examples can stand in for entire populations.

But efficiency is not the same as truth.

Collective language does have legitimate uses. Political parties vote as blocs. Institutions act with coordinated intent. Some ideologies are genuinely dangerous. It would be unserious to pretend that every conflict is misunderstanding.

But there is a difference between identifying coordinated action and assigning collective malice.

“This institution produced this outcome” is a claim about responsibility.
“They want to harm us” is a claim about intent.

The first invites argument.
The second invites fear.

When we stop distinguishing between people and patterns, we stop describing reality and begin constructing a story.

Versions of this dynamic exist across the political spectrum.

On one side: “They’re destroying the country.”
On the other: “They’re destroying democracy.”

Different villains. Same structure.

A broad, undefined “they” becomes morally unified and existentially dangerous. Once that architecture is in place, curiosity feels naïve. Restraint feels weak. Escalation feels justified.

Division itself is not new. Democracies are built to withstand disagreement.

What concerns me is not division itself, but the normalization of escalation — the steady habit of describing opponents as irredeemable rather than wrong.

Because escalation makes de-escalation harder.

When we attribute collective malice to large, undefined groups, we train ourselves to anticipate hostility. We assume bad faith before encounter. We brace instead of engaging.

This does not collapse society overnight. It simply makes it more brittle.

Escalation, however, is rewarded.

Outrage travels faster than qualification. Certainty spreads more easily than doubt. A sharply defined villain is more emotionally satisfying than a complicated system.

Digital platforms intensify this dynamic. The algorithms do not reward precision; they reward intensity. Posts that name enemies travel further than posts that parse complexity. Strong emotion is sticky. Nuance is slow.

Over time, a feedback loop develops:

Escalation generates engagement.
Engagement generates visibility.
Visibility reinforces escalation.

This does not require conspiracy. It requires incentives.

When escalation becomes profitable — financially, socially, or culturally — restraint begins to look like weakness. The person who qualifies appears hesitant. The person who generalizes appears decisive.

The cost of that reward structure accumulates quietly.

When we become accustomed to speaking about one another in moral absolutes, we narrow the space for recalibration. We begin to interpret disagreement as hostility before evidence demands it. The move from pattern to paranoia rarely announces itself. It arrives through repetition — a phrase here, a viral clip there, a shorthand that feels harmless until it hardens.

Several years ago, I visited a Berber village in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. In conversation with an older man from the village — through gestures, fragments of shared language, and patient listening — he explained how life was understood in his community.

For the Berber people, he said, there are three religions.

The first is nature — respect for the land and the living world.
The second is human — respect for all people, regardless of belief or identity.
The third is individual religion — whatever faith a person chooses. That, he said, is personal.

Then he smiled and added that every human being has two eyes, a heart, and a soul — and that everyone wants the same basic things: to be loved, to have health, to have family — and a camel.

If you have those things, he said, you have enough.

Their beliefs do not erase political differences. It does not resolve structural conflict. It does not eliminate power struggles.

But it clarifies an order.

Humanity precedes categories.
Respect precedes doctrine.

When wildfires tear through towns or hurricanes flatten communities, people don’t pause to clarify political affiliation before helping one another. In moments of real vulnerability, labels recede. People become neighbors again.

If we can see one another as humans in crisis, why are we so quick to forget that humanity in debate?

Language shapes perception. The more we speak in collective shorthand, the more natural it feels to see one another as unified threats instead of individual humans. The sentence no longer requires contact with a real person. The label absorbs the charge.

What’s lost in the process isn’t just accuracy.

It’s encounter.

Before we condemn “the left” or defend “the right,” before we brace against “them,” it’s worth being clear about something:

If we cannot name who “they” are — with specificity, with evidence — we are no longer describing reality.
We are constructing it.

And once we construct a threat, we begin reacting to it as if it were real.

So, before we speak in those terms, the question is simple:

Who, exactly, are we talking about?