The Politics Of Anger - NPR

[BridgeTheGap]

On YouTube and talk radio, at town halls and rallies, voters seem to be angrier than they've been before. Host Guy Raz talks to journalist Sasha Abramsky about the origins of this wave of rage. Abramsky examined the phenomenon in a recent article called "Look Ahead in Anger." Raz also talks with politicians who've borne the brunt of the anger, including Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC).

About a week ago, California Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat, showed up for one of his regular town hall meetings with constituents. And at that meeting, Sherman was taken aback a bit when a constituent stood up with an unusual question.

Representative BRAD SHERMAN (Democrat, California): The question in question started off by saying that the Department of Justice had a policy not to prosecute any African-American for any crime if the victim was white.

RAZ: Now, the thing you should know about Brad Sherman is he's one of the most mild-mannered members of Congress, a hardworking, if a bit nerdy, public servant. And so Sherman politely answered that question.

Rep. SHERMAN: I am extremely sure that we do not have a policy at the Department of Justice of never prosecuting a black defendant if the victim was white.

Unidentified Man #1: Yes, you do.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128606442&f=2&sc=17

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Not merely "anger". This borders on downright insanity.

He got this right....

Rep. SHERMAN: I mean, I remember extremely angry people on both sides of the Vietnam War, but they were both watching pretty much the same news every night. Now, you can have people living in their own separate worlds with their own sources of facts or alleged facts.

[Demeter]

2. Everyone's Entitled to His Own Opinion

But NOT to his own facts.

The anger comes from the lies, which are being more and more difficult to sell, thanks to the nearly instant fact-checking available from the Internet.

There's a lot of lies on the Internet, but they are usually identified as such within hours. DU was an excellent resource for that.

The biggest problem today is that DU itself is becoming a de facto purveyor of lies, in that there's a movement to suppress "Inconvenient Truths" by cultists who will not hear a discouraging word, nor let anyone else say or hear it, if their "rock star" is tarnished by it...

[BrklynLiberal]

6. But only those truly interested in finding out the "truth" do fact checking.

The fans of beck and limpballs always "know" they are being told the "truth" by their idols

[DBoon]

3. that's completely loony

Where did this guy get his "information"?

I point a finger at the whole right wing chorus, for thinking up this nonsense and spreading it around, knowing full (and cynically) well that thay are manufacturing lies out of thin air.

We have a whole industry dedicated to making lies sound truthful

[groovedaddy]

4. The anatomy of anger...when in a high state of anger or distress, the blood in the brain tends to

'pool' in the limbic (reptilian) portion of the brain (apparently readying for the fight or flight response). At this point, many people are incapable of rational/logical reasoning, which takes place in the frontal lobes.
That said, I was plenty angry during the Bush years, but I'm fairly sure I kept my reasoning faculties about me. Rather than simply raging, I dug deeper for facts, did some writing, went on radio talk shows, etc. I ratcheted up my political involvement.
I remember the quote: "Not all conservatives are stupid people but all stupid people are conservative." As true today as it ever was!

[LongTomH]

5. More on the cause of this anger:

RAZ: You argue that there is something new happening in America right now in our political discourse.

Ms. ABRAMSKY: That's right. I mean, if you look at anger and paranoia and rage, there's a rich vein of that in American history. The poli sci professor, Richard Hofstetter, half a century ago wrote a very, very famous essay about the paranoid style in American politics. And he said, look, the paranoia that you see in groups like the John Birch Society is as American as apple pie.

But until fairly recently, the apple pie, the Norman Rockwell vision of America, the sort of sunnier, more optimistic vision of what America is and what it represents, has usually counterbalanced those sort of rageful, paranoid, fringe elements of the political process.

And what worries me about the current moment is that the middle ground, the people who in ordinary times in the past were fairly optimistic about the country they lived in. That middle ground is becoming increasingly fearful.

I've noticed this myself. More and more people I talk to are fearful about their future.

In a conversation with a conservative friend, I made the statement that I remember growing up in an America that was on the ascendant (or so we thought!). She replied: "Are you afraid? I'm afraid most of the time!"

[stltduggan]

7. thats the problem

I get information sent to me (usually from my friends on the right) that contain many untruths about a variety of subjects. It indeed bothers me that people are willing to propagate the untruths sent to them because they either want to believe it or they are unwilling to check it. Just give me the facts....hopefully I can make an informed decision on my own. One thing I tried to teach my children is that just about everyone in the communication industry has an agenda regardless of what side of the fence they are on. We tend to read and believe the ones who are closest to how we see ourselves. I.E. I would not watch FOX news (or read any of Murdoch's rags) if they were the only source of information left on earth...however I go out of my way to listen to NPR just about every day.