Democrats think they're too smart for rage.

If Democrats use the word "existential" one more time, I'm going to lose it

Let me be the first to admit that I am guilty of an overcomplicated thought. I have written sentences that were way too long, way too complicated, with way too many parenthetical clauses, topped with way too many try-hard vocabulary words. I am guilty, and for that I apologize.

But if I have to listen to another Democrat explain Trump’s ongoing demolition of the United States government using distant, over-intellectualized, academic, legal jargon — I might actually lose a piece of my mind.

It isn’t that they’re wrong.

Donald Trump’s actions present an existential threat to our democratic norms. He continually ignores legal precedent, while consolidating power in the hands of billionaire oligarchs through executive overreach. His executive orders are unconstitutional at best and fascistic at worst. I’m certain that they cannot pass strict scrutiny without a radical reinterpretation of the law — something the ultraconservative supreme court is want to do.

They’re totally right—and I am concerned that the American people do not care—precisely because the people who are best positioned to help them understand the stakes, think themselves too smart for rage.

Right, right…

Anger and Spite.

I’ve wondered for a while whether or not American politics can work in any other gear but “mad.” My thought crime take is that the peculiar circumstances of America’s founding means that Americans are uniquely motivated by anger and spite. Taxation without representation? Tea in the harbor. Spite. You want to dictate who we can and cannot enslave?? War time. Anger. You think you can get to the moon before us? Apollo 11. Suck it. The Civil Rights Movement is often viewed as a peaceful ordeal, but chaos and protest and rage were the main character of the 1960s.

I think a reasonable case can be made that all of America’s most significant social and political movements — for better or for worse — are downstream from Americans being very angry about something. And as an American, I’m secretly proud of this fact. I come from a Black church tradition that values righteous indignation — the prophetic voices of Old Testament prophets destroying idols, and speaking passionately about the sins of the people. I love the stories of defiant Black men and women who weren’t content with a kumbya, and I know I’m not alone.

It’s why we love reality television brawls. It’s why Kendrick Lamar just won 5 Grammy’s for calling Drake a pdf file. It, I think, is part of the reason Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024.

Perhaps we are drawn in by the truth of anger and the honesty of spite. Perhaps America is just the baby sibling of the world, walking the globe with a needless chip on our shoulder. Either way, Democrats have lost touch with the authenticity of rage. They are great at expressing empathy, technocratic proficiency, and a deep reverence for institutions and process. But the kind of indignation that inspires a movement? They’ve fully ceded that ground to a demagogue, seemingly at the apex of his power.

The Democratic Party’s Dilemma

White men have always tried to hold a monopoly on socially “acceptable” rage in American culture. James Baldwin brilliantly dissected this reality in 1969,

“If any white man in the world says give me liberty or give me death, the entire white world applauds. When a black man says exactly the same thing – word for word – he is judged a criminal and treated like one, and everything possible is done to make an example of this bad nigger so there won’t be any more like him”.

Baldwin may have captured the Democratic Party’s truly impossible dilemma over the last decade. Democrats have run some of the most qualified presidential candidates in American history. And yet, in no small part because they were women, they were fundamentally at a disadvantage. For all of the progress we’ve made, women are still judged when they are angry. The “angry Black woman” stereotype haunts. The “she’s just not likable” implicit bias amplified Hillary Clinton’s flaws.

I remember watching Joe Biden in primary debates and on the campaign trail and chuckling to myself about how angry he seemed back then. But, to be honest, I get it now. Joe, perhaps instinctually, understood something important about the American political psyche. He understood the importance of rage. Ezekiel 9:4 vibes:

“Walk through the city of Jerusalem and mark the forehead of anyone who is truly upset and sad about the terrible things that are being done here.”

I don’t know if Democrats will find a way to stop — *gestures wildly* — this. I don’t know if Democrats will rescue their sinking national brand in a time where an opposition party matters the most. But if they do any of it, it’ll be because they finally got mad enough to care.

What I’m Reading/Watching

A short list this week:

• Ezra Klein’s latest on Trump’s weaknesses and how to see through his “flood the zone” strategy. This is important. Check it out!