In one of his recent columns, Garrison Keillor referred to Stephen Miller as the “Minister Of Anger”. In a way, it’s a very apt epithet. Miller is, perhaps more than any other official in the regime, the one who marshals hostility toward anyone the Ringleader disapproves of. But is “anger” really the appropriate word here? Perhaps not. It seems to be yet another term, like woke, DEI, political correctness, and fake news, that the right-wing has hijacked and tortured into something to suit its own purposes.

And it’s by no means a new development. For decades, the reactionaries have played the Anger Card — or had it played for them. Rush Limbaugh (remember him?) was not infrequently pegged as the “voice of angry white men” in America. Turn on Fox “News” and you’ll hear an endless stream of diatribes cranked up to a maximum pitch in order to get the viewers riled up and keep them riled up. They’re mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore. The Conservative punditocracy have made a routine of proclaiming how “angry” and “fed up” they are over… well, something or other.

But there’s the rub. In order to be angry, you need something to be angry about. If you just walk around being rude and hostile to everyone for no reason, that’s not anger. It’s just a bad disposition.

And the thing is, MAGAs have very little to be angry about. They are generally people who have been suckled on privilege of various kinds their entire lives. And the threats and oppression that they believe are threatening and oppressing them are almost totally imaginary. It just does not compute for people who get their lettuce picked and their chickens plucked by “illegal” immigrants to declare that they are “angry” about the influx of “illegal” immigrants. If you have to pick on Barbie or M&M’s to trigger your ire, you’re really really desperate to be immersed in pissedness. It isn’t anger at all. It’s just rage.

Rage is not an instinctive response to harm or injustice. It’s not defensive at all, but offensive. Rage is the attack of a rabid wolf or a rapist or a terrorist or a Klansman at a lynching.

Rage is shooting an unarmed mother in the head as she’s trying to drive away, and then calling her a “fucking bitch”. Anger is the public response to such an act.

While there’s no logical justification for rage, those who traffic in it often gin up faux justification for it. “They had it coming.” “I’m just doing this because of what the libs are doing”. One of the men who tortured and murdered 14-year-old Emmet Till later said, “What else could I do? He thought he was as good as any white man.”

Exactly the same rationale as the wife beater who says, “See what you made me do.” They’re just reversing the direction of the assault and casting the real offense as a defensive maneuver — no matter how absurd such a characterization might be.

A lady I once knew was walking one evening with a male companion when they were accosted by a pair of bandits who took their money and then began beating the companion. “Why are you doing that?” she demanded. They paused a moment and replied, “I don’t know”, then left. Maybe her companion brought it on himself. And what else could they do?

The next time you hear a right-winger say that they are “angry” about the existence of people they hate, and what else can they do, someone should gently point out that what they are experiencing is not righteous anger but self-righteous rage. If they are not called out on this, they will start (or rather go on) usurping the territory of anger to plant their rage flag in, and mislabeling it as anger. And they will go on presuming they’ve earned the right to be there.

They haven’t.