The Conservative Anger Litmus Test

Brett Kavanaugh

This numbskull at work plays right-wing talk radio way too loud. And by “way too loud,” I mean much louder than necessary for him to hear it at ordinary sound levels, but not loud enough to hear over power tools and equipment. Clearly, unless he’s suffering severe hearing loss, he doesn’t need the radio at this volume. I wondered for weeks why he played his radio so loud. Then I realized: he does it for me.

He hopes I, or someone like me, will complain about him playing Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and other shouting nabobs of partisan hackery. Personally, I don’t mind this guy has politics that disagree with mine. I don’t even mind that he seeks sources that encourage a more extreme and divisive iteration of what he already believes. Everyone is entitled to their sources. I mind that the sources he chooses are always shouting.

During last week’s Senate testimony, a literal “she said, he said” where Dr. Christine Blasey Ford stated her case, then Judge Brett Kavanaugh called her a liar, we heard lots of shouting. Blue Facebook and Blue Twitter held virtual postmortems where they reminded fellow thinkers that, in a two-sided debate, whoever starts shouting first is usually wrong. Defensiveness, belligerence, and wrath are refuges for liars and cads.

Except conservative Americans didn’t perceive things that way. Point out that Judge Kavanaugh started screaming and crying even during his prepared opening statement, they’ll respond: “But she accused him on national TV.” Note that he responded to ordinary routine questions with petulance and spleen, they’ll answer: “Wouldn’t you get angry if somebody said things about you?” Rage, I’ve observed anecdotally, is their only reasonable response.

Lindsey Graham

Nor was Judge Kavanaugh alone in his fury. Professional hand-wringers in the punditocracy have made bank parsing the outraged displays from Republican Senators like Lindsey Graham and Orrin Hatch. The nominee to be one of America’s top judges gets angry at accusations, rather than trusting that facts will exonerate him, and legislators echo his choler. The people we expect to be rational debaters think shouting proves them right.

I’m reminded of linguist and political commentator George Lakoff. In his book Don't Think of an Elephant, Lakoff describes the mental framework separating conservative and progressive Americans in terms of family dynamics. Progressives favor the “nurturing parent” model, where parents encourage children to do more and better with their lives and choices. This dynamic, not gender specific, believes in rewarding fledglings for leaving the nest.

Conservatives, however, favor what Lakoff calls the “strict father” model. A stern, singular lawgiver, usually but not necessarily male, provides the source of moral authority, and brings the hammer down on anyone who strays from righteousness. This strict father might reward good and honorable behavior, but exists mainly to punish wrongdoers. The orderly, obedient home, is the source of justice. This is the dynamic of “wait till your father gets home” parenting.

To a certain form of highly public conservatism, indignation and rage aren’t deflections or shelters from responsibility. They’re expressions of paternal righteousness. If you aren’t angry, you aren’t honest, and more importantly, you aren’t serious. To this mental framework, fathers default to anger because anger teaches children the ways of righteousness. Being the first to become angry doesn’t make you weak or wrong, it makes you fatherly.

Alex Jones

Consider those talk-radio pundits shouting down the airwaves. Limbaugh and Hannity aren’t shouting at someone who disagrees with them; their core audience shares their opinions. Alex Jones is famous for becoming so outraged, while reaching an audience who already agrees with him, that he’s reduced to incoherent, wordless brays, screaming “Aaahhhhh!” into the microphone. (Some women, like Jeanine Pirro and Tomi Lahren, also share this quick-to-anger dynamic. But they’re outliers.)

The voting base that favors high-profile, demonstrative conservatism didn’t see Judge Kavanaugh’s outrage as deflection or retreat from facts. They saw a display of honesty and moral confidence. Psychology might say this interpretation doesn’t jibe with research and observation, but Kavanaugh’s intended audience doesn’t care. Anger, to their mindset, stands for truth and courage. Only the truly angry have moral courage to lead.

While progressives mock Judge Kavanaugh’s display as unbecoming of a judge, polls indicate that voters already inclined to believe this “strict father” model see Kavanaugh as more trustworthy. Pollsters are reluctant to attribute reason for this outcome, probably because more than one reason applies. I, however, feel confident in saying that, at least partly, conservatives love Kavanaugh because they endorse his willingness to get angry.