Opinion: The dangers of third-person plural in today’s America

Tim Stauffer

Managing editor, The Iola Register

The most dangerous word in America right now just might be “they.” 

See if this tragic pattern sounds familiar. Something awful happens. Everyone immediately jumps to blame “them” for causing it. Half the country picks one side, half the other. A toxic online debate follows, and the nation is left angry, exhausted, and primed for yet more violence.

The week since Charlie Kirk’s assassination has been an example of this cycle of hatred.  

“They” are the problem. “They” are the enemy. “They” just don’t get it. It becomes so easy to demonize them, to mock them, to justify revenge and violence.

EXAMINE the recent wreckage. Charlie Kirk killed on a college campus. Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband murdered in their home. Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette shot a combined 17 times. (The killer, who had a “hit list” of 45 political targets, also attempted to shoot their daughter.) The attack against Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. 

They all stem from an urgent, damning truth: Our society has forgotten — and forsaken — talking to each other.

TRY IT yourself. Try listening to someone talk about the other side without tumbling into a twisted tirade about how “they” are beyond redemption. No use talking to or trying to engage “them.” Better to just isolate, unfollow, block, ignore.

See where it’s getting us?

Utah’s governor Spencer Cox does. Since Kirk’s assassination, Cox has been a leading voice to lower the temperature.

“We can return violence with violence. We can return hate with hate, and that’s the problem with political violence — is it metastasizes,” Mr. Cox said. “Because we can always point the finger at the other side. And at some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse.”

Cox has spent a considerable part of his career trying to get Americans to talk to each other. In 2023, Cox launched “Disagree Better,” a nonprofit designed to fight hyperpartisanship.

“We’ve forgotten how to persuade without hating each other,” observes the organization’s website.

Cox’s home state of Utah has a long tradition of cooperation and compromise. Mormons imagined the state as a refuge after fleeing persecution. “The Utah Way” has allowed politicians like Cox, John Huntsman and Mitt Romney to avoid the “no compromise” era of modern politics where the other side is an opponent, not a potential partner.

“We’re weird,” Cox said at his State of the State address last January. “The good kind of weird. The kind of weird the rest of the nation is desperate for right now.”

When he got booed at Utah’s Republican convention last year because of his middle-of-the-road stances, he sagely responded: “Maybe you just hate that I don’t hate enough.”

AS AMERICANS grasp for a way forward, Cox offers lessons.

“Social media is a cancer on our society right now,” he said. “And I would encourage people to log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member.”

All too true. Scroll through Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube right now. Their algorithms are desperate for your attention. Your anger.

“The most powerful companies in the history of the world have figured out how to hack our brains, get us addicted to outrage … and get us to hate each other,” Cox said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Conservative star Ben Shapiro echoed those remarks in a recent interview on the Free Press podcast.

“How social media works is a disaster area, fully a disaster area,” he said. “There’s no question it’s making the world a worse place.”

THE ROOTS, though, are deeper. It’s bigger than just logging off. It’s how “we” talk about “them.” How hate’s venom has poisoned our culture and conversations. Americans now see political parties as teams that demand eternal loyalty. No matter what, “we” are always right.

“They” are always responsible for everything “we” hate. “We” must win.

It’d be wise to ignore absolutely every single politician’s remark that contains “they.” Once the word is on your radar, you hear it everywhere. It’s how most politicians talk these days.

But the lazy demonization of “the other” must stop. And it starts with us. Not them. No waiting for the first move. It starts with us.

“We’ve got to find our way back to each other,” said James Talarico, a state lawmaker in Texas. “That’s the only way we can continue this American experiment.”

If not, the constant specter of “they” may very well destroy it.