"We are the angry mob
We read the papers every day
We like who we like,
we hate who we hate
But we're also easily swayed"
-- Kaiser Chiefs, "The Angry Mob"
Sometimes it feels really good to get angry.
It's a perfectly natural emotion that can be healthy when used appropriately. Even the best people get angry. Jesus got mad and threw the moneychangers and dove sellers out of the temple. And there was another time, when he was hungry, that he cursed a a fig tree for being barren. Poor thing immediately withered, and became a symbol of the efficacy of prayer.
When anger provides the impetus to correct an injustice, it's a very good thing indeed. When someone is doing something wrong and deserves a righteous telling-off, it's sometimes the duty of a good person to provide it.
But it goes without saying that anger can be dangerous. You don't want to jump too ugly with the person who shares your bed or cuts your paycheck. Anger is a solvent on your common sense and decent upbringing. Angry people are susceptible to taking regrettable actions. There are a lot of things you shouldn't do while angry. Doctors say we shouldn't eat when we're in a heightened state of emotions because our bodies perceive that we're in a flight-or-fight situation where digestion is the least of our problems. We shouldn't drive because anger puts us in attack mode, which could lead us to take unnecessary chances. We shouldn't go near social media, for obvious reasons.
We shouldn't vote angry either.
There's a lot of talk out there about how American voters are angry, and maybe some of it is true. In her response to the State of the Union message last month, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley allowed that "[d]uring anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation."
She's right.
If you pay attention to things like Donald Trump rallies, you hear lots of spite and bile, a lot of free-floating anxiety being converted into resentment of vague groups and institutions--"Washington," "Hollywood," "the one percent"--and other candidates. And while we don't mean to pick on Mr. Trump, sometimes it seems as though his campaign exists to exploit the discontent of Americans, to distill their disappointment into something that feels a lot like hate.
Mr. Trump isn't the only one willing to take advantage of the "anger" of Americans--there's some pretty harsh sniping going back and between supporters of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. (At 74, Mr. Sanders remains the embodiment of a certain angry young man who believes he's the only honest soul in town. And while passion isn't all bad, you simply can't govern without friends. He's a social Democrat, after all, not a would-be emperor.)
The sometimes ugly Twitter wars and stump-speech broadsides of the candidates are just what is expected; it's how this game that isn't bean bag has been played. Let the ladies and gentlemen putting on the show get as angry as they want. It's lively. It's good television.
But prospective voters are charged with being adults here. Understand that when candidates call for voters to get mad, they're really trying to manipulate voters into suspending their powers of rational observation.
They're asking for more than support--they're asking for fealty. And they aren't entitled to that.
Editorial on 02/08/2016