{"id":15713,"date":"2024-12-14T18:25:14","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T18:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=15713"},"modified":"2024-12-14T18:25:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T18:25:14","slug":"us-versus-them-the-pronouns-of-populism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=15713","title":{"rendered":"Us-Versus-Them: The Pronouns of Populism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;The imprecision of the populist&nbsp;<em>they<\/em>\/<em>them&nbsp;<\/em>enables its flexibility, making it malleable and applicable to an ever-changing array of targets. Researchers from Germany&#8217;s Friedrich Schiller University Jena closely&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/281409878_Human_impersonal_pronouns_in_populist_discourse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">examined<\/a>&nbsp;pronoun usage in populist rhetoric. According to their study, populists favor impersonal pronouns, such as&nbsp;<em>they<\/em>, to avoid specificity, absolve responsibility, and reduce complexity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Traditionally, this reductionist worldview rails against a wealthy and powerful &#8220;elite&#8221;\u2014greedy corporations exploiting the poor on the left and a globalist cabal undermining cultural homogeneity and national sovereignty on the right.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, populism also sets its sights on other groups\u2014and few are better at hitting these moving targets than Donald Trump.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2024\/11\/02\/us-versus-them-the-pronouns-of-populism\">https:\/\/reason.com\/2024\/11\/02\/us-versus-them-the-pronouns-of-populism<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;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&#8217;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.<br \/>\nTraditionally, this reductionist worldview rails against a wealthy and powerful &#8220;elite&#8221;\u2014greedy corporations exploiting the poor on the left and a globalist cabal undermining cultural homogeneity and national sovereignty on the right. <\/p>\n<p>However, populism also sets its sights on other groups\u2014and few are better at hitting these moving targets than Donald Trump.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/reason.com\/2024\/11\/02\/us-versus-them-the-pronouns-of-populism\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2139,2140,2051,2141],"class_list":["post-15713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-in-group","tag-out-group","tag-populism","tag-pronouns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15714,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15713\/revisions\/15714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}