Below is my column in the Hill on the rise of rage politics. There was barely a respite from the rage rhetoric after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the sniper attack on the ICE facility. Gov. Gavin Newsom is back this week to calling his opponents “fascists” while other Democratic politicians are back to calling ICE “fascists.”
Here is the column:
“Let your rage fuel you.” Those words from Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger captured what I have called “rage politics” in America.
Across the country, politicians and pundits are fueling rage, encouraging voters to embrace it. If you turn on the television, you would think that Darth Sidious had taken over: “Give in to your anger. With each passing moment, you grow stronger.”
I do not think for a second that Spanberger supports violence. She was sharing with voters the “sage advice” of her mother, which she said she has applied in her political career. However, the anger is all around us.
Recently, I debated Harvard Law Professor Michael Klarman, who declared, “I am very angry” and “I am enraged.” In denouncing ICE as “thugs” and saying Trump supporters are “fascists,” Klarman explained that the rage had a purpose: “to shake people out of their insomnia.”
Rage, however, comes at a cost in politics. I recently wrote a book about rage and free speech, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” It discusses our history of rage politics and how it has led to violence and crackdowns. Rage gives people a license to say and do things that they would not otherwise say or do. It is addictive, it is contagious, and it is dangerous.
We are seeing the result of rage rhetoric all around us. That includes the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the sniper attack on ICE agents in Texas this week, in addition to violent protests around the country.
Rage allows you to deny the humanity of those you disagree with. Recently, two sisters were caught on video destroying a memorial to Kirk. Kerri and Kaylee Rollo were later arrested. However, they immediately opened a GoFundMe site to call for donations for “fighting fascism” and Kaylee wrote “my sibling was fired from their job.” Hundreds of donors gave the sisters thousands of dollars as a reward for the latest such attack on a Kirk memorial.
For many months, some of us have warned that violent rhetoric was crossing over into political violence. Democratic politicians have spent months ratcheting up the rhetoric against ICE agents, who have suffered more than a 1,000 percent increase in attacks, including the recent sniper attack.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), the day before that attack, signed a law that purports to bar ICE agents from wearing masks in California. He openly mocked them, asking, “What are you afraid of?“
Joshua Jahn answered that question the following day in Texas when he fired at ICE personnel, only to shoot three of their detainees.
Previously, Newsom had warned voters that Trump was building ICE into a personal army that might be used to suppress voting in the upcoming midterm elections. “Do you think ICE is not going to show up around voting and polling booths to chill participation?” he said.
Others added to the rage rhetoric by declaring the impending death of democracy and lashing out at ICE. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who has used violent rhetoric in the past, declared that ICE agents were acting like “slave patrols” in hunting down immigrants in the streets.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) used a commencement address to denounce “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons… just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared.”
Others, like Boston Mayor Michele Wu, echoed the claims that ICE personnel are “Nazis” and called ICE Trump’s “secret police.”
The rage rhetoric (and claims of a fascist takeover) has been adopted by a wide range of Democratic politicians, often using the same catchphrases of an “authoritarian playbook.” In our debate, Professor Klarman warned that this was all “authoritarianism rooted in old-fashioned white supremacy.”
As discussed in my book, politicians and pundits have long sought to ride the wave of rage into power or influence. Rage is a powerful narcotic. The problem is when it becomes an addiction. There is always a certain percentage of the population that will believe such hyperbolic claims.
Those are the people who end up trying to kill jurists like Justice Brett Kavanaugh or politicians like Trump. It was also seen in the assassination of Democratic politicians earlier this year in Minnesota.
With the recent assassination and attacks on ICE, some are expressing regret. One of the most telling was Hillary Clinton on MSNBC, who said that we should “stop demonizing each other” while blaming “the right” for most of the hate. It was a curious call from a woman who called Trump supporters “deplorables” and suggested that they should collectively be forced into “deprogramming” as a cult. Just before the interview, Clinton had embraced the “fascism” mantra and, during the interview, she went right back to attacking Republicans.
A new poll shows that 71 percent view political violence as a serious problem, but the rage rhetoric continues unabated.
The perfunctory calls for lowering the temperature after the latest shooting are unlikely to last. Key figures in public life keep injecting rage directly into the veins of American politics. It is hard to go “cold turkey” in breaking that addiction, but you first have to want to do so. There is no indication that our rage-addicts are anywhere near a step-program for recovery. If history is any measure, this fever will only break when voters clearly reject the politics of rage.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
*. Stepping back the tool used is speech. It’s emotional speech used to create fear and hatred. If a balanced view is wanted between extremes watch right wing news and left wing news including ads.
Today msnbc uses headlines such as – you should be scared to death. Right wing news uses- words such as- optimism. The ads on right wing have embedded fear in ads such as- buy emergency food. You never know when you’ll need it.
The goal of the left wing is to create servitude ultimately and a caste system. More than that is unspeakable because HAL is listening and can read lips.
This is where the necessity of core values and beliefs step in. Values and beliefs are found as when Odysseus lashes himself to the ships unmovable mast to combat the calling of the sirens. The mast is core values, beliefs that have been identified through the test of time.
Step back again and see Twin Towers and then Mamdani to gauge the success.
Emotionalism is powerful. Emotionalism is available to all people where rationalism is available to few.
*. No one will like this —
How planned is it, rigged for emotionalism? Watch Tlaib screech in opposition to Donalds. They planted women everywhere and women are hyper-emotional creatures. Congress is filled with them now and men think they must follow . Did Kimmel shed some tears?
There are exceptions, Gabbard, Bondi, Huckabee but they aren’t the rule. Bleach blond bad body, oh don’t you go there gurl…
In other news, the NFL has chosen a cross-dressing freak for the next Super Bowl Half Time Show. I have not watched an NFL game since the whole kneeling-for-a-dead-drug-dealer crap. Then, we get the flaming gay cheerleaders, and now this. So no, the Culture Wars are not over, and hopefully Americans will turn their backs on the NFL, but who knows.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4343269/posts
Floyd – I too am no longer interested in the NFL, or the NBA for that matter. Both have gone woke.
Are they private companies that can do whatever they want? Was this the argument used to justicy the silencing of Kimmel?
They are! And private companies depend on consumers willing to pay for their product if they’re going to make a profit! You know that as well, right?
Which leads to wondering why companies would decide to spend millions of dollars to lose even more millions of dollars due to lost viewership of their programs and performers. Whether the NFL or Kimmel.
Anyone want to argue that the NFL will get MORE viewers by deciding that a Tranny Drag Queen from the Democrats’ Alphabet Sex Pride Tribe will also appeal to Republicans as well as Democrats?
Did the Tranny On A Beer Can private company decision make Budweiser more money as compared to putting a sports figure (or a horse pulling a beer wagon) on that can?
And speaking of Jimmy Kimmel: is he now going to increase his viewership and suddenly stop losing his employers millions of dollars each year?
Communists have never understood free markets and commerce.
People are just expressing their concerns about things. They can do that, you know.
You said that before. A comment like that fails to engage with the topic at hand.
Along the same lines as Ilhan on 9/11, some people did something…
These low-down rotten scoundrels are fomenting a wedge in the populous that may have an outcome more dire than they wish. Hate of neighbor could have the same results as the Hatfield-McCoy’s or even a civil war. Reminds one of the divide within the Muslim Religion, where interpretations of the written word are in dispute. The old rhyme: ‘Sticks and Stones’ does make sense, but once words are converted into stones because of the word’s interpretation, it becomes harder to turn the cheek when you or your neighbors are being assaulted.
Appeasement and Fear. Both are mechanisms to assure personal gain with the hope that you will increase personal wealth, power, and perceived autocracy (through rage and raged empowerment) – ergo: don’t be categorized into those whose trip to Dachau is inevitable. Churchill expressed it well, and we are there again, today
“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear greatly that the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar ever more loudly, ever more widely.” — Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill(1874-1965)
The liberal globalists seem to be calling for rage. History shows that nationalist conservitives have guns and like to fight. The globalists need to be carefull of what they wish for. People can only be pushed so far. Many of us reject extreme ideologies of fascism, Nazism, and communism ie: anything that is not freedom and capitalism. Freedom and Capitalism has freed more people from poverty than any other ism.
Interesting talk. She gets into how something like Charlie Kirk’s murder can have two impacts – first, a lot of people leave the Left in disgust over how there is widespread celebration over his death, and second, how some on the Left double down, and rage even more.
Floyd
Watch General Flynn and Epoch Times interview. He lays it all out perfectly.
I have it on now, assuming this is the one:
I suspect that much of this “rage” is performative, an act to garner support, money, influence and fame.
Grandstanding is mother’s milk to these politicians.
That is probably true. But one action can serve multiple goals. The ability for rage rhetoric to incite a fringe lunatic to take violent action is not a new phenomenon, and the people spewing that rhetoric know it. That ability is forefront in everyone’s mind right now given recent shootings. So denial is no longer plausible.
OldManFromKS,
I agree. But I also think Democrats have nothing to run on other than bad policies so they use rage rhetoric to appear that they are “fighting!” when in reality they have nothing but bad policies. So, just like the trolls here, they try to deflect.
As I have stated here on the good professor’s blog before, I do not want to see some kind of one party rule. But Democrats really need to get the progressive, woke, leftist stupid and crazy out of their party if they want to win elections again.
Upstate – what concerns me is that the stupid/crazy is now the bulk of the party, with more reasonable and intelligent voices such as Senator Fetterman becoming outliers. Nor am I confident that doubling down on stupid and crazy is a losing strategy for the Dems. It has won them many states in presidential elections, as we saw in 2024. While Trump admittedly carried all seven swing states, the margins in those states were not huge, and if for some reason people are unhappy with the status quo in 2028, a stupid, crazy left-wing lunatic could win. For proof, I point to 2012: the most corrupt and destructive president in American history, who by that time was outed as a Commie jihadist-sympathizer in all but name, beat someone who was at that time a mainstream conservative (notwithstanding he went bonkers later on).
Tortois and the hare.
USF
Their policies to run are simple, keep their rotten corrupt azzez out of prison.
@Upstate
I don’t want one party rule either, that is wholly antithetical to our system, but the modern DNC is not an option, just, no (and yes, I am aware that in the beginning for the USA, the talk of parties was controversial). Would love for the supposed moderates or true liberals (other than the Professor) to find their spines and stand up. And supremely publicly and authentically, not just more doublespeak to win and then resume 2020-2024. We are at the point where we can’t trust literally anything they say; we have to look at what they actually do. It’s a, ‘watch the picture without the sound’, moment, IMO.
“I don’t want one party rule either,”
James, we also don’t want fascist rule either, so, at the present, we have to recognize the Democrat Party as the party of the fascists, leaving only the Republican Party to fight their fascist leanings. Eventually, the Democrat party has to split or die. When the people recognize how anti-American the Democrats are, they will strive for a new party to support our republic.
Yes yes yes, We are going to hear a lot more from Gov. Gavin Newsom in the coming days and months, because that’s the only Democrat believed to be a viable candidate in the 2028 Presidential race by the DNC currently.
Newsom’s days as a Governor are over in January of 2027, leaving the DNC plenty of time to ramp up Newsom’s image for the 2028 Presidential run.
Ok we all know the plan now, but what about the ‘substance’? Newsom is Harris in an Armani suite. The word salad removed but the rage rhetorical rancor remains the same.
Blue States will be Blue so goes the West Coast, thus 2028 is another ‘Play the Electoral College’ re-run.
When will Americans ever learn this is not the way to build a Great Nation.
One reason for all the rage is COGNITIVE DISSONANCE. The average Leftist has a view of themselves as smart and good and loving, and the savior of BIPOCS, and the alphabet folk etc. What to do when Reality slaps them upside the head, and when the rest of us refuse to affirm their identities as smart and good people? When their ideas of how to run things is rejected? When they are ridiculed and mocked for fools? When their lack of achievement is held out for all to see?
One way to not deal with the underlying problem, which is that they are simply wrong and need to change their minds, one way to handle it all, is to RAGE!!! To toss the Candyland game board off the table when you draw the Peppermint Card and have to go all the way back to candy cane square.
As AI says:
Yes, rage or anger can be a symptom of cognitive dissonance because the resulting discomfort, guilt, or frustration can manifest as anger, especially when the individual is unable to resolve the internal conflict between their conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or actions. This emotional response is a signal of mental distress caused by holding contradictory cognitions, prompting the individual to find ways to reduce this uncomfortable state.
Why rage can occur:
Internal conflict: Cognitive dissonance describes the mental discomfort that arises from conflicting beliefs or attitudes. This internal conflict creates psychological tension.
Negative emotions: This tension can result in a range of emotions, including anxiety, regret, shame, and anger.
Motivational drive: Anger, like other negative emotions, can serve as a motivational signal, driving the individual to change their behavior or thinking to alleviate the dissonance.
Inability to resolve dissonance: When a person is unable to effectively resolve the inconsistency, the feelings of stress and frustration can escalate into rage.
Emotional regulation: The emotional distress of dissonance can make it difficult to regulate emotions, potentially intensifying feelings of anger.
In essence, rage is a possible negative affective state that can stem from the psychological stress of cognitive dissonance, acting as a signal and a motivator for the individual to address the underlying inconsistencies.
Rage can turn a nobody into a somebody. I think that’s what makes it so appealing.
Just look at the comment section of any post on this blog for a convenient example.
At Harvard there’s a taxpayer-funded “lab,” run by a Harvard prof, which promotes left-wing rage and violence, focusing in particular on radicalizing militant transgender activists:
The assassination of Charlie Kirk by a radical transgender activist has once again spotlighted the growing militancy inside the LGBTQ+ protest movement. What the mainstream media won’t tell you is that this rising wave of aggressive activism isn’t happening in a vacuum.
Read the whole story here:
https://nataliegwinters.substack.com/p/harvards-theythem-professor-teams
OMFK
Time to hold these politicians and their “activerrorists” accountable.
Gavin Newsom is worried that ICE will be at the voting booths and “chill” participation. Does he realize what his words has actually imply? Isn’t it a good thing to deter illegal aliens from voting?
Nothing new, New Black Panther Party members intimidating voters 2018, Wingman Holder failed to prosecute.
Happened in Philadelphia
So we have leaders with tremendous authority abusing the First Amendment which will result in the government violating the First Amendment rights of average citizens (incited by leaders abusing free speech).
Government will punish the wrong people, not the irresponsible government leaders inciting the violence.
With tremendous authority comes tremendous responsibility. Please Mr. Trump stop inciting violence and dividing Americans on Truth Social! The First Amendment was designed to protect average citizens, not the most powerful oath-sworn officials like yourself.
Whoa, main quote right outta a Spiderman movie…figures.
Now, please say this again, with ALL your heart, to Newsome, a vile speech-abuser himself, and your presumptive presidential material.
Democrat’s Political Rage Rhetoric = 2026 Mid-Term Election Victory. That’s their plan Jonathan. Thank you for an excellent article. Greg
Res Ipsa Loquitor.
Yes, we are in the “age of rage.” The very esteemed Prof. Jonathan Turley calls it the “age of rage,” and of course, this is true.
However, I think some of the “rage” is stimulated (and defined) by what I once read, attributed to a Jesuit, termed “motivated reasoning” wherein we quickly accept new information that supports our purpose but we are much more skeptical about information that challenges our beliefs.
Res Ipsa Loquitor. The article speaks for itself.
Your point is not as profound as you think it is….the huge part you leave out of your definition is instrumental to its untruth and lack of depth:
the rest of the matter—why “motivated reasoning” does not apply, the way you think it does—is proven by reasonable response to the left’s abandonment of reasonable standards of civil care, resulting in damage and violence (rage-rhetoric, rioting, looting, shooting) under the left’s exclusive control and management,
damage and violence which does not ordinarily happen in the absence of such civil negligence. In other words, wrongdoing (harm/damage), under the control and management of the wrongdoer can be logically inferred from FACT …. to wit, the right’s logical response is hardly the echo-chamber you imply.
Well. I was trying to be above the fray, but I think you made my point. Your point about the percieved “reasonable response” and “control” sums up the divide. Some say Jan. 6 was a reasonable response and controlled. Most think it was a very bad day fueled by rage. I think this is what Prof. Turley is getting at.
While above the fray, perhaps, your implication was pointed more at the most reasonable side of the rhetorical divide.
The J-6 manufactured “rage” was a controlled-operation, fueled by [ some say, 275 FBI-plants and plenty of antifa-thugs in Trump-drag]. You shouldn’t use J-6 as your example because you don’t know facts—you know a narrative, fueled by a corrupt investigation committee that even went so far as to create evidence scenarios (Hollywood production style), and later, destroy records:
this alone should give you pause in regurgitating the well-oiled story. You will never know the truth of this. Pick another example.
John, I respect your wish to stay above the fray, but not at the expense of truth. January 6th wasn’t simple. Protesters, agitators, and politicians were all there. A few turned violent; most did not. Those who committed violence deserve punishment. Was it justice to jail nonviolent people for political reasons? …Or to bar fair-minded members of Congress from the J6 Committee simply because they might challenge its story?
Was Ashli Babbitt’s killing justified? What about the unresolved questions surrounding Rosanne Boyland’s death: reports show she was struck while on the ground with a baton by a black female police officer. Shouldn’t that matter?
What of the media, many of whose early claims collapsed under later video evidence?
Many kinds of people were at the Capitol that day. My goal isn’t to bury facts, it’s to find them. New evidence keeps surfacing. Don’t you want the full truth as well?
I think there is enough information to draw some reasonable conclusions. Maybe Mike Pence has an opinion too, but the point is seeking the script that suits your hope is a specious exercise. Agree. Remain open. That is the goal. Not motivated reasoning or biased predisposition pressing the scale of reasonableness to suit a result.
John, your words sound fair-minded, but they sidestep what I asked. Saying “there’s enough information” isn’t the same as addressing it. I laid out specific questions: about selective prosecution, about deaths still in dispute, about who was barred from the committee, and why. Those aren’t “scripts,” they’re facts that deserve daylight.
Remaining open is a virtue, but only if it includes openness to inconvenient evidence. Dismissing honest inquiry as “motivated reasoning” doesn’t answer the substance; it just changes the subject.
If we both value reasonableness, then reason demands engagement with what’s verifiable, not just what feels settled. So I’ll ask again: which of those questions do you believe are closed—and on what evidence?
The First Amendment was primarily designed to “restrain” government officials and protect average citizens.
Average citizens have some influence, but a president for example influences over 300 million people in the United States and billions of people globally.
Since the First Amendment was designed to protect citizens and restrain government officials, shouldn’t Congress, presidents and government leaders have MORE restrictions on their speech? If one is lucky enough to serve in Congress or serve as president – shouldn’t there be a stronger code of conduct for leaders affecting 300+ million Americans?
Shouldn’t it be an impeachable offense to divide Americans against one another? Since the First Amendment was never designed to protect government leaders with millions of followers.
Dueling, caning and fisticuffs were also quite a common practice in settling disputes. I love the old adage,”Don’t let your grizzly bear mouth overload your canary azz.”
No, the 1st Amendment was designed to restrain the Government “Congress SHALL MAKE NO LAWS ….”, government officials are fully protected by the 1st A, it is up to the voters to penalize those politicians that abuse it.
People expressing how they feel about other people. Is this really such a problem?
It is when you say to harm them? Have you not noticed?
Denial is not a river in Africa…..stay in your lane, Fredo!
Your debating skills are something else.
What is scary about Newsom is he is so in your face that if he ever won the prez, he would avenge democrat dysfunction by quadrupling illegal entry to not only from Mexico but the middle east and the entire world too, no vetting, no questions asked.
There is something chemically wrong with this guy. He is truly delusional as to the role of state governors: They are normally not elected to dismantle the economy of their state thinking the fat Silicon Vally boys will make up the difference. We actually have refineries closing because of Newsom’s regulatory assault. This is the effect of rage and mental illness combined with isolation from reality.
He’s a fruit loop, watch his hands…
He’s a total fraud, a pelota graza seguro!
So Republicans control the Executive Branch (White House/agencies), Legislature Branch (both houses of Congress) and the U.S. Supreme Court (final word on all disputes).
So why doesn’t Trump enact his policies legally using constitutional due process?
It depends on the mid terms.
However, the true worry is if in ’28 a Biden democrat wins and embraces Biden’s style of eliminating all traces of Trump’s legislation, re bloats the federal bureaucracy, and then blows up the budget out of spite, inflation will grind another 12%+ off American wealth. That leaves one question to be answered: “Is national debt real or meaningless.”
100% of government employees/contractors from the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches at the local, state and federal levels swear an Oath of Office NOT to the nation, NOT to the people but they swear supreme loyalty to the U.S. Constitution.
That means 100% of government personnel (local, state, federal) sign an employment contract to follow the laws passed by Congress, passed by their state legislature and passed by their local governments as a condition of holding governing authority and retaining that authority.
Any government official or contractor being disloyal their Oath of Office is practicing “Fascism” or a foreign model of government. There is nothing hateful in the least being concerned about American oath-sworn officials practicing foreign models closer to Spain’s Francisco Franco or Italy’s Mussolini. The Hitler comparison is indeed too extreme and not accurate describing America’s new experient with dictatorship and fascism.
So you are talking about dem-o-rats right
Biden wasn’t a Dictatorship, he was a potato head grifter figurehead. What 2020-2024 was is a cabal of the Obama administration operatives executing the final step of their seditious coup.
Anon – Your word salad misses the point: The Donald has done what the people voted for (landslide) on 11/5/24.
Closed border
Law & order
Waste fraud & abuse
Big Beautiful Bill
Energy. Drill baby drill
Biden inflation – gone
Historic stock market
Peace through strength
Ended 7 wars
Iran nukes, not
DEI dead
No men in women’s sports
Cheap eggs (you’re welcome)