![[167th St. Station. James Baldwin Mural. New York, NY by Kathy Drasky]](https://outsidethebeltway.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/52085397453_a8c5a88f72_k-jpg-e1723729484503.avif)
![[167th St. Station. James Baldwin Mural. New York, NY by Kathy Drasky]](https://outsidethebeltway.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/52085397453_a8c5a88f72_k-jpg-e1723729484503-1024x422.avif)
The famous line from the 1976 satire Network is: “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!” In 2016 and even more so this year, that could easily be the Trump Campaign’s slogan. As I covered in a post on J. D. Vance’s lack of media skills it’s clear that the campaign is primarily running on anger and outrage. In that example, Vance responded to a softball question about “What makes you happy?” by explaining why he’s so angry.
This type of outrage was also on display in North Carolina yesterday. Here’s an excerpt where Donald Trump proclaims that the United States is a third-world nation:
Again, his phrasing is NOT “We are BECOMING a third-world nation.” It’s that we ARE ALREADY a third-world nation. While “becoming” is a significant exaggeration (especially for those of us who have traveled the developing world), the “are” formulation is just off-the-charts outrage to the point of self-parody.
Once a campaign chooses anger and outrage as its underlying messaging strategy a challenge they face is they can never let off the breaks. After all, if we are genuinely a third-world country, it means we are already in an existential crisis. Hence why J. D. Vance can’t discuss what might make him happy. The focus always needs to be on anger.
This also includes attacking your opponents for not being angry enough. See this recent comment from Vance:
In Vance’s view, Harris should not smile or dance because the challenges we face as a nation are so big. Perhaps he forgets that Donald Trump often dances to YMCA part of his rallies. Perhaps Trump is just dancing angry.
To be clear, looking at the Trump supporters that post here at OTB, anger resonates with them. Their comments are always full of outrage at the authors and their fellow commenters. They are buying what the campaign is selling.
I am sure at this point, I’ll be called out for not highlighting how angry our Democrat and progressive posters can be at times. Trust me, I know those times well. Yes, there is a lot of anger flying from all sides in the comment threads. To some degree that’s the way of the internet. However, what makes this not a “both sides” thing is that I can quickly find counter-examples where they posted with joy or celebrated the accomplishments of others. Yes, even noted curmudgeon Michael Reynolds takes a break from yelling at Trump supporters and woke YA authors/fans to get off his digital lawn.
This is where I turn to James Baldwin. We just celebrated the 100th anniversary of the great writer and advocate. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I only really started to explore his work in the past few years. I knew he existed, but was never exposed to his brilliance before seeing others share and discuss it on social media like Twitter. I quickly became a fan and have been slowly working through the wealth of poems, essays, plays, and interviews he left behind. One particular quote of his has been living rent-free in my head recently. It’s from the collection of essays The Fire Next Time.
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
This quote provides a lot of insight into the attractiveness of running on anger. If you go back to the video of Vance’s attack on Harris’s “Joyful” approach, as much as he’s focusing on being angry, he’s also focusing on real, painful issues like the impacts of poverty and addiction on families. Without a doubt that pain is real.
The problem is that staying angry stops the healing process. It keeps you artificially locked in a single stage of grief while, in the background, the pain grows worse. Any possibility of healing keeps getting put off. And that’s an awful way to exist in the world.
I’m not saying that a “joyful all the time” approach is the right one. However, I think it’s possible to still get angry and experience other emotions while orienting towards joy. I don’t see that possibility in the Trump/Vance approach. And that, to me, is a dead end (and something I believe a majority of the electorate are tired of).
(BTW, that’s also part of the ultimate moral of Network.)
Postscript 1: As I review this for posting, I am concerned that in the current environment, this will be read or used as an “attack” on Trump, Vance, or, more importantly, their supporters. All I can say is that isn’t my intention. As I’ve written about in the past, I have spent much of the last six years diving into the topic of trauma and how it manifests itself in individuals and communities. Running on anger, or perhaps more accurately, trying to outrun pain, is a trauma response (at least in most Western cultures). It’s one of the “five f’s” of self-protection: fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and flop. Those reactions are neither “good” nor “bad”–they simply “are.” That said, just about every clinician and healer I’ve studied all agree that getting trapped in any one of those modes is unhealthy in the long term.
My real hope is that this reflection might get folks thinking about how they (and the candidates they support) might be doing things to keep them stuck in one or more of those trauma responses to the pain they are carrying.
Postscript 2: One other thing I want to be clear about: I don’t think MAGA folks are the only ones who may be struggling with pain. At this historical moment, I think most of us are. COVID-19, by itself, was a global traumatic event. Everyone was affected in different ways. Then there are all the other pains we might carry due to things that happen in our lives. No one is immune from pain.
