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A few years ago I spent a lot of time listening to conservative and religious right talk radio, watching right-wing pundits and news shows, and reading through conservative Christian blogs and web sites. One thing that all of these venues had in common was that everyone was angry about something, all the time.
I have a friend who knows a little about politics, so I asked him about that. The conversation went something like this:
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ME: I can't understand why all of these people are always mad about something. Everyone is angry. Christians are angry. Libertarians are angry. The pundits are angry.
FRIEND: You don't get it, do you. . .
ME: Get what?
FRIEND: This is what is supposed to happen. The purpose of all these shows and web sites and pundits is not to communicate information, but to keep people in a constant state of anger and umbrage. The goal is to keep people perpetually pissed-off. This is a case where the medium is truly the message. And the message is to be angry all the time. It is an appeal to the emotions, not to rationality.
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I think this is why it is difficult to make comparisons between left-wing and right-wing political discourse. While people on the left are angry about some things, that anger tends to be focused on specific individuals and events, e.g., Bush, the Iraq war, the use of torture, and so on.
Anger on the right tends to be much less focused. It is generalized, free-floating, and typically applied to entire groups -- liberals, humanists, secularists, environmentalists, immigrants, labor unions, the "culture of death," Hollywood, and so on.
In the time that I spent in the right-wing venues, I can't count how many times I heard people say that "liberals are stupid," or "liberals are evil." I have NEVER heard anything like that on the left. I've never heard any blanket condemnation of "all conservatives." I suppose it can happen, but I haven't heard it.
The closest thing on the left to right-wing talk radio is Air America. But even in that there is no comparison. On the left there simply is little interest in perpetual, free-floating anger. In comparison to the right-wing talk radio feral pit bull, Air America is a tame poodle, if even that.
