White Americans: Why are you so angry?

[Nice Squirrel]

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/poll-whites-republicans-rank-angriest-americans-n488636

Nearly half of Americans are angry, and no groups are angrier than whites and Republicans, according to a new NBC News/Survey Monkey/Esquire online poll about outrage in the country.

Overall, 49 percent of Americans said they find themselves feeling angrier now about current events than they were one year ago. Whites are the angriest, with 54 percent saying they have grown more outraged over the past year. That's more than Latinos (43 percent) and African-Americans (33 percent).

 

[DrZoidberg]

I'm white and not angry. So much for that theory. You might want to narrow the group you generalise about

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I'm white and not angry. So much for that theory. You might want to narrow the group you generalise about

You are correct. White Americans. -- You people in the happy countries!

 

[Derec]

Nearly half of Americans are angry, and no groups are angrier than whites and Republicans, according to a new NBC News/Survey Monkey/Esquire online poll about outrage in the country.
Overall, 49 percent of Americans said they find themselves feeling angrier now about current events than they were one year ago. Whites are the angriest, with 54 percent saying they have grown more outraged over the past year. That's more than Latinos (43 percent) and African-Americans (33 percent).

Calculus should be a required course so people do not make such silly mistakes as confusing a value of a function with its rate of change. The two bolded portions do not mean the same thing dear NBC journalists.

Also, online polls are rather unreliable. I guess they have not polled many BLM activists. Perhaps many of them do not have regular internet access or are just too busy blocking malls and interstates.

 

[zorq]

I'm back in the US right now for the first time in more than two years and I think the anger is palpible compared to the east asian and south american countries I have visited more recently. It is rather unpleasant and jarring.

Why is there so much anger in my white (mostly Republican) family and their friends? I have a hypothesis that it is more than a couple things.

One could be the cognitive dissonance between the propoganda these people have been taught their whole lives, like that the US is the greatest country in the world, and the growing knowledge that there are some awesome countries out there with happier people and fewer problems.

In a similar vein I think that these people are realizing that the "American dream" is dead. Working hard your whole life will not guarantee you an upgraded standard of living or social class. They know that they started with a lot of advantages over others, they dedicated themselves to working but now they feel betrayed by their lack of progress even against some of the people they think started with fewer advantages.

Eh, I' not a psychologist, and I haven't done or read any formal studies so don't read too much into this.

 

[RavenSky]

I'm white and not angry. So much for that theory. You might want to narrow the group you generalise about

You are an American?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Anger from people that listen to right winged radio and TV has an obvious source, carefully enflamed by the right winger media. It oozes from people like Lush Rimjob and Lying Bill O'Reilly. And of course the tight-assed conditions we have suffered from things like the Bush meltdown that still persists to some degree keeps people on edge. Decades now of far right agitprop has it successes.

 

[ronburgundy]

Nearly half of Americans are angry, and no groups are angrier than whites and Republicans, according to a new NBC News/Survey Monkey/Esquire online poll about outrage in the country.
Overall, 49 percent of Americans said they find themselves feeling angrier now about current events than they were one year ago. Whites are the angriest, with 54 percent saying they have grown more outraged over the past year. That's more than Latinos (43 percent) and African-Americans (33 percent).

Calculus should be a required course so people do not make such silly mistakes as confusing a value of a function with its rate of change. The two bolded portions do not mean the same thing dear NBC journalists.

Valid point. However, they do present other results more relevant to the claim: "Seventy-three percent of whites said they get angry at least once per day, compared with 66 percent of Hispanics and 56 percent of blacks."

Although that is only 7% higher than Hispanics, and "angry" is not the same as "outraged". Minor frustrations, such as those at work could be a contributing source of such "anger". Is part of the difference merely due to whites being more employed, and thus experience workplace frustrations?

They do ask about sources of frustration, but those don't address the above question because they only list to most frequently stated sources, which can still account for the minority of instances (i.e., "congressional dysfunction" could be cited 15% of the time and still be more often than any other single reason).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Of course. The GOP keeps whipping them up in the name of winning the election.

 

[ronburgundy]

Only White Republicans have increased their anger over the last year more than other groups.

Anger is a by-product of fear, and together they are the foundational force behind conservatism. So, nothing surprising there.

The most interesting aspect of the results are the top reasons given for "outrage" by Dems and Republicans, both showing reactionary conformity.

Predictably, "Democrats rank police shooting unarmed black men as the issue that makes them most mad." Now, at least that is something worthy of being upset about, but it isn't remotely close to the cause of the most suffering by blacks, let alone the greatest general violation of any liberal or left wing values or principles. But drones who let clickbait stories dictate their worldview and only know about what they read on twitter converge on such mob mentality about what matters most. That conformity is the bottom-up type.

With Republicans, the mindless conformity is the top-down authoritarian type, where the masses adopt the "outrage" their unquestioned authorities tell them they should care about. "Consumer Fraud" was a top reason for Republican anger, but that isn't what you'd think, namely them being angry about corporations committing fraud. That makes no sense in light of Republican rhetoric and policy. It almost certainly reflects the rhetoric over the last year by Republican authorities and candidates expressing outrage over Dodd-Frank financial reform Bill designed to limit the type of Fraud that crippled the economy in 2008 and is up for renewal this year, plus the existence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau set up by Warren. IOW, Republicans hate that the anyone is trying to prevent corporations from fraudulently ripping people off. Their leaders have been telling them to be outraged about this for the last year.

Both groups are being emotionally manipulated, but at least the Dems are merely over-prioritizing something that is worthy of attention, whereas Republicans are being brainwashed to feel outrage about something that is ethically positive and in most of their actual interests (just not the interests of their wealthier masters).

 

[EricK]

Although I am not an American, I took their "rage quiz" to find out how angry I was. My results came back as:

It’s official: You’re only a little angry.

According to an analysis of your responses, at least fifty of your fellow Americans are angier than you.

I'm guessing that meant 50% of Americans.

But one problem with the questions is that they asked how angry various headlines made you, without asking why they made you angry. I mostly get angry with news stories because of how the headline sensationalises the story, and/or gives a false impression of what the state of affairs really is. But I don't think that is necessarily what they are basing their conclusions on. In fact, it is how news is reported which is one of the things I find most annoying, rather than the actual events they purport to describe.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I'm white and not angry. So much for that theory. You might want to narrow the group you generalise about

You are an American?

Sorry for the confusion, I changed the thread title from "White People" to "White Americans".

 

[laughing dog]

Of course white US citizens are angry because our lives no longer matter. /conservoracist

 

[Deepak]

You are an American?

Sorry for the confusion, I changed the thread title from "White People" to "White Americans".

 

[ZiprHead]

There's a black Muslim usurper in the White House. That's causing most of it.

 

[fast]

I'm white and not angry. So much for that theory. You might want to narrow the group you generalise about

I'm white and angry. So much for your so-muchin'.

 

[fast]

Anger is a by-product of fear, and together they are the foundational force behind conservatism. So, nothing surprising there.

Thus present anger being independent of fear hasn't been ruled out.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to conservatism.

 

[thebeave]

Well, I can't speak for all white people, but for example, this morning I opened my floor safe to count the cash I've accumulated thanks to my white priviledge, and the rubber band on the roll of bills suddenly broke and snapped the back of my hand somethin' fierce. Ouch! Why can't they make decent rubber bands these days?!!

 

[fast]

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to conservatism.

Is fear the only source of anger? I'm being told that anger is a by-product of fear, and if that is so, then we can sometimes expect one's fear to lead to anger, but that does not imply that all anger is a function of fear. Besides, doesn't it sound kinda silly to think that every instance of anger is based on fear? That would take a monumentally unusual stretch of what the word, "fear" means.