Outrage Now Fuels Public Conversation

Outrage has become the mindset of choice.

Outrage is a blanket that keeps us warm and safe. It’s the perfect excuse for violence, fear, and justified stereotyping. Outrage is a get out of jail free card in a world where almost everything can be considered offensive to someone. It can make it almost acceptable to burn down Baltimore or shame an entire faction of people for loving a certain flag.

Recently I had a lengthy conversation with a colleague about the power outrage seems to have over our online audience. The stories that truly resonate to our readers, gathering the most response, are the stories most likely to upset the person reading them. This is true of the big international media outlets and the small community news sites alike.They are the Donald Trump stories, the Caitlyn Jenner and Hillary Clinton stories. People read those far more often than, for example,happier tales of community improvement. The darker and more divisive the story is, the more popular it becomes on the website.

Furthermore, most of the interactive feedback happens on these stories. The Donald Trump supporters and detractors go after one another with fiendish delight, getting personal with their insults. People will go out of their way to talk about how Caitlyn Jenner is really a man, only to get into a verbal sparring match with someone who has strong feelings of support for the transgender community. They will usually proceed to call each other names and lower the bar of discussion.

Political ideas that people might actually have agreed with are immediately dismissed because they come from someone of the other party, and “they’re all idiots.” Jimmy Carter gets sympathy on social media for his cancer diagnosis as someone else chimes in to belittle his presidency and call him a failure. It has come to that. We bash a cancer-suffering former president who won a Nobel Peace Prize and built houses for the homeless and undertook numerous diplomatic missions for his successor because he was a Democrat.

Worse still, when a famous pitchman for a restaurant chain admits to sexual misconduct with minors and child pornography charges, a number of stomach-churning jokes appear online within the hour.

It’s all fuel for the outrage.

Outrage can build until it moves those who are already unbalanced. It can motivate their urge to lash out against the parts of society they feel deserve to suffer. This brings great potential for disaster. It can appear as teenagers assaulting a 54 year-old man in a public park because they feel they can. Or it can appear as a madman gunning down reporters who are just out one morning doing their jobs.

And what do these acts accomplish? Among many other things, they inspire further outrage.

Why is Donald Trump doing so well in the polls after the sort of comments that would have buried most politicians? I think it’s because he has found a way to tap into the raw outrage. He legitimizes the sort of rhetoric that modern society frowns on, the politically incorrect frustration that exists at the core of people who cling to old mindsets without a socially acceptable way to express their opinions.

I’m not saying everyone who loves Trump hates women or Mexicans. I’m saying deep down, everyone wants carte blanche to vent their spleens, but society frowns on it. Donald Trump’s lack of an interlocutor appeals to people who feel silenced because spilling their fears might have a negative impact on their lives. Trump has no such fear. He is the proverbial honey badger who just doesn’t care what anyone thinks. The people who love Trump are not bad people, or even misguided. They are an outraged group of people basking in the light of a new champion.

It is easier to be outraged and shut your mind down completely than it is to consider both sides of a situation and engage in conversation. Not all Mexicans are criminals. Not all Muslims want to destroy America. Likewise, making crude jokes when we find out that a well-known person or celebrity has done something awful is not productive or useful. Refusal to accept this reality keeps us from coming together and accomplishing great things as a society. And a nation of people going into an election cycle with outrage guiding their vote is a horrifying prospect.

You might even call it outrageous.

Tommie Lee is the host of Truth Radio 1340’s morning show. You can tune in from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. weekdays on AM-1340.

Originally posted at The Elkhart Truth