It’s us now. And them.

It’s them now. Against us. Them versus us. Us versus them. It’s getting so I don’t know who’s us and who’s them.

I don’t know the rules. Not anymore.

I thought us was America. I dreamed us was … humanity. But I don’t know.

I write in the abstract about loss. About 11 Americans gunned down in their house of worship, tragic and brutal and reminiscent of decades past, when us-against-them violence tore apart the city of my youth.

An angry reader asks if I’ve written anything to denounce Antifa or “colleges that refuse to allow the First Amendment to be exercised on campus.”

Because it is us. And them. And it’s not enough in the us-and-them world to say nobody should be killed or attacked because of rage or fear or anything else.

I preferred it when there was a we. There was a we, wasn’t there?

I speak of the qualities of some candidates for office, and how straight ticket voting for Republicans or Democrats is fraught with danger.

And I hear of Demo-rats and Republi-scum. Because it’s not enough to disagree anymore. It’s not enough to hold heartfelt opinions and to simply stand for the things we value.

Better to demean, and disdain, and dehumanize, to call the names that would send a kindergartner to time out.

Because all that matters is us against them.

I don’t even know us anymore. I don’t know them. I don’t care much for either one.

I write of problems in the state court system, shortcomings tracked in a survey of those who have been caught up in it.

I’m called a stupid idiot. Those survey respondents are called “drains on society,” likened to dogs “crapping in the house.”

Because it’s easier to think of each other as animals than people trying to make it in this world. It’s easier to think of them as beasts and enemies and something other than us.

They are them. Whoever they are.

They are Democrats, or Republicans, or immigrants, or black people, or white people, or young people, or old people, or poor people, or rich people, or journalists or lawyers or cops or protesters or Christians or Jews or Muslims or atheists or me.

Or you.

They are anybody who scares us, anything we can be persuaded to fear.

That’s what we are, I guess. Afraid.

We are afraid of them.

I’m becoming afraid of us.

I never thought I’d see an America like this. So easily frightened. So willingly cowed. So eager to turn our backs on all this country claims to be in order to turn “We the people” into … just us.

Against them.

I thought this was the land of the brave, with courage to stand for the inalienable rights of all, with backbone to fight for the freedom of others. But instead I see fear.

That opportunity for them means none for us.

That hope for them means despair for us.

That jobs for them means unemployment for us.

That healthcare for them means lower profit margins for us.

That death for them means … nothing to us.

Us versus them is a strategy. Us versus them is a treasonous effort to divide and conquer and destroy. Us versus them is a disease. Us versus them is a threat – a clear and present danger to this country.

I don’t know us. I don’t know them.

But I do know we. The people. And it is still our country.

John Archibald, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a columnist for Reckon by AL.com. His column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com.