From driftglass:
…because both Republicans and the Beltway media never stop trying to diffuse responsibility for their catastrophes by “we”-ing the rest of us into their shame circle.
As you probably know, we here at the DGBG Productions (driftglass blog, The Professional Left Podcast, etc.) have been waging a long, lonely war against the promiscuous use “we”, “us”, “The American people”, “The Congress”, “Washington D.C.” and any other language deployed by the media and by Republican politicians in the service of pretending that somehow everyone and all institutions are collectively and equally culpable for explicitly Republican cowardice, Republican barbarity, Republican racism and Republican sedition.
Or that, conversely, the energetic and resolution opposition to explicitly Republican cowardice, Republican barbarity, Republican racism and Republican sedition is something that “we” are all in together. That, for example. stripping tens of millions of Americans of their health care in order to pay for tax cuts for plutocrats with something up with which “the American people” would not put.
No, no and no.
Because other than geographically, there is no such critter as “the American people”. This is the unhappy truth which the Beltway media damn well knows but would rather pull its own head off rather than speak aloud, which is why the word “we” has been so brutally abused by everyone with something to hide.