‘The People,’ They Say

On the use and abuse of political terms: ‘the people,’ ‘elites,’ ‘workers,’ etc.

When I was in high school or college, I had a head full of politics, and a head full of populist steam. One night at dinner, I was spouting off about “the people”: “the people” this, “the people” that. The great holy people, whose voice needed to be preeminent. My father, trying to get a word in edgewise, raised his hand and said, mockingly, “I’m a people.”

I was ticked. But I recognized that this was an...