Life in Activism: Your Anger is Making Someone a Lot of Money

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

One trend I have noticed over my political life is the increasingly widespread promotion of anger as a public good.

I think you know what I am talking about. It is encapsulated in sayings like “if you are not outraged, you are not paying attention,” or “if you are not outraged, you are part of the problem.” In our times, we expect our fellow activists and our leaders to not only distinguish right from wrong, and to not only act in support of what is right and against what is wrong, but to be performatively angry while they are doing so. It is no longer possible to just do the right thing—you have to be visibly enraged while you are doing it, or else you are doing it incorrectly.

Well, I have something to tell you today that I hope will make you a little skeptical of this trend: anger over politics is a big business. A very big business. A multi-billion dollar a year business.

A lot of people who you do not know—consultants, social media influencers, Substackers, email and text message marketers, pundits, staffers of campaigns and advocacy organizations—are making a lot of money off of people, including you, who are angry about politics. You don't know who these people are, what their goals are, or what they are doing with this money, but they are doing very well off your anger and enjoying their lives quite a bit as a result, thank you very much.

I’m not writing this article to accuse anyone specifically, or to name and shame. I consider that sort of thing poisonous. I am writing this for you, the individual grassroots Democratic or progressive activist (although, who knows, perhaps conservative activists could benefit from my advice). With Donlad Trump back in the White House, it has become par for the course in progressive circles to make daily, visible demonstrations of your burning rage. In this environment, it’s wise to wonder: are there people who are profiting from your rage? And, if there are people profiting from your rage, should you perhaps be suspicious of the provenance and motives behind the rage-oriented media you are consuming?