The Anger Is Real. Let’s Do Something With It.

Don’t let the purveyors of rage drag you down to their level.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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I should be writing a fundraising column right now, making the case to support Mother Jones‘ journalism at a time of truth decay. But I can’t.

Like far too many women, and not a few men, I have a head full of flashbacks—Christine Blasey Ford saying “burned into the hippocampus is the laughter,” Lindsey Graham yelling and pointing, a woman calling into C-SPAN to share, at last, what happened to her, the swirling questions of what, exactly, I could testify to from my memories of assault. 

Ford and Kavanaugh are my age, and my recollections sport the same haircuts, clothes, and retrospectively complicated movies. Maybe that made it more enraging to watch everything—Orrin Hatch calling Ford “pleasing” after she tried so hard to be collegial, the men on the committee laughing together after they finished, the grotesque descent into partisan screaming. 

But what pulls at me the most are the questions: Who are we? Who will we be when this is all over? 

This week, perhaps more than any since November 2016, has felt broken. That Brett Kavanaugh, Lindsay Graham, and many of those 11 men on the Senate Judiciary Committee would feel the need to let loose with spittle-flecked anger was deeply unsettling. As unsettling, in a different way, as yet another stunningly racist political ad; as watching children torn from their parents at the border; as an American president saying he and a murderous despot were “falling in love.” 

Those moments are not about winning elections or political debates. They are about power, at virtually any cost—as is sexual assault.

I know as a journalist, the appropriate thing for me to do is be “neutral,” to acknowledge that “Renate alumni” might just be a nice way for Catholic boys to memorialize a good friend, perhaps even to find some way to bemoan this is all a normal consequence of living in a polarized society. 

But I really can’t. Because this is no longer an intellectual argument. It’s something we feel in the hippocampus—the catch in Ford’s voice, the reach for “some caffeine,” the desperate desire to be anywhere but there, to talk about anything but that, all while being “collegial.” Just like when we watched Anita Hill, whose bravery was greater still because she did not have half the committee rising in passionate defense, and because she had to face the demons of racism and misogyny.

Hill and Ford deserve our admiration and respect. But they deserve more. Truth-telling is not a spectator sport—it’s something every one of us can do.

So this is not a fundraising post, it’s a “turn your anger into something useful” post. Rage has become the defining principle of one part of the political spectrum. Don’t let it become yours.

Turn off cable (for a bit). Log out of Facebook. Read a book (Jeffrey Toobin’s The Nine, about the Supreme Court, is great for perspective right now) or a magazine article. Register to vote, help someone else register to vote, volunteer (check here under “politics,” for example), have a respectful conversation. (In the vein, perhaps, of Texas’ Beto O’Rourke, who exhorted his supporters yesterday: “If you’re a Republican, you’re in the right place. If you’re a Democrat, you’re in the right place. If you’re an independent, you’re in the right place. We’re all human beings, and we’re going to start treating one another that way.”)

As Kevin Drum wrote a couple days ago, “If you believe that your political opposites aren’t just opponents, but literally enemies of the country, then of course you’ll do almost anything to stop them.” Trump, Graham, and a man who wants to sit on the nation’s highest court have convinced themselves opponents are the same as enemies. Don’t let them convince you, too.

If you feel inclined, please share how (and what) you’re doing. And if you have questions, let us know that, too. We’ll be here, turning our own rage into reporting the truth.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

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