politics of anger

What does that mean exactly? It's used in the title of an article of some place I never heard of before dragged up by Drudge, he does that, McClatchyDC, now watch it turn out to be an important place and I should be embarrassed for not knowing. Their title:

Obama's legacy: Politics of anger, fights, division. 

I didn't read it. No wait, I did too. My eyes went flush like a cataract down to the comments and I did see in the wash all the words you expect. That right there is what you call speed reading. Faster than Evelyn Wood does and I mean it. It went like this: yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah boom comments.

Comments the likes of which I have never seen. It's a bad sample. A link from Drudge. You know it's going to be nothing but people wound up. And man is it ever. They can be crackpots sometimes.  I've never seen one like this.

While reading and being amazed, I cast back to the worst comment threads under Bush II, and still no comparison. No comparison at all. It's axiomatic, actually, Americans tend to get sick of their president the eighth year if they last that long, but now, this year, with the internet having advanced to this place, and this being a Drudge link the compression of intensity of comments borders on nuclear. The comments are run through Facebook so you expect silliness, but this is not that, there are no lighthearted quips, no reverse japes and jabs, it's all run one way in torrent, straight concentrated dislike, distrust, disgust, and straight hatred for this administration. A study in itself. Every previous conservative complaint, every aspect of every event covered by media of past seven years is touched in the comments repeatedly.

Except one.

As for politics of anger to the point of splitting parties, a meme central to Never Trump contingent is satire and ridicule and jokes about Trump's short fingers. Yet of all the complaints, and they're harsh, and they're concentrated, and they're honestly everything at once, nobody mentioned Obama's lady hands and they're featured in the photograph heading the article. I find that astounding. There Obama's lady hands are BLAM right at the top before even reading. Commenters complain harshly about everything except that one thing, the one hand-related obsession that  anti Trumpers use. Here it is a foreshortened photograph, Obama's hand is extended in front of his face, straight armed,  so his hand should be much larger than his face in the frame, it proves the straight arm in perspective, but instead his absurdly small mismatched lady hand is actually smaller than his head and arm's length behind it, and it's foreshortened! C'mon, that one thing bugs the piss out of me because he waves his hands around so much pedagogically, for seven long pedantic years, like a maestro sometimes, waving his hands around for dramatic emphasis, they move around so very much and say nothing, it's frustrating, and they need to be swapped with Michelle's hands for proper balance in scale but nobody complains about them. He gets a pass.

Even in that comment thread. And it's the worst I've ever seen. From where I'm looking, this is the point of highest concentration. It startled me. Because there is no arguing back over there, no tu quoques, no so's your mother. So far. The long comments took time to work out. They are not customary Facebook vacuity and they are not just venting either. These people are explaining themselves. They are explaining philosophical positions they've had to work out, they're explaining how they got there.  So far as I read through, I didn't detect one word of contention or support for the article itself. They drop the article and slip down to comments to deliver their what for.

That's another thing I noticed. A long time ago I began losing patience with certain things linked to online and with so much available I developed an attitude of 'got no time for that.' If the place offered comments I'd drop down and say "Lost me at _____." Just to be an ass. I guess. I do have time to be an ass. Then it developed to the point that now when I get to the propaganda part and drop it, then tell them where, they already know why. I saw a lot of that in comments there. It cheers me. People have had it up to their ears with nonsense. They read along then, "Obama's one big accomplishment is healthcare," and readers drop the whole thing on the spot, and say so in comments. If Mum were alive she'd say to me, "You're rubbing off on 'em, Kid." I'm rubbing off onto them. I don't think so, but it sounds nice.