“The imprecision of the populist they/them enables its flexibility, making it malleable and applicable to an ever-changing array of targets. Researchers from Germany’s Friedrich Schiller University Jena closely examined pronoun usage in populist rhetoric. According to their study, populists favor impersonal pronouns, such as they, to avoid specificity, absolve responsibility, and reduce complexity.
Traditionally, this reductionist worldview rails against a wealthy and powerful “elite”—greedy corporations exploiting the poor on the left and a globalist cabal undermining cultural homogeneity and national sovereignty on the right.
However, populism also sets its sights on other groups—and few are better at hitting these moving targets than Donald Trump.”
https://reason.com/2024/11/02/us-versus-them-the-pronouns-of-populism