Why Hope Is More Powerful Than Anger

Anger is real but also too easy.

Journalist Derek Thompson observes on his Substack that Americans are increasingly miserable, and he wonders, “If America’s So Rich, How’d It Get So Sad?” Well, first off, most Americans aren’t rich, and a recent poll shows that 55 percent of respondents believe their financial status is only getting worse. Meanwhile, Republicans want to stick taxpayers with the bill for Trump’s ballroom. The only thing preventing a repeat of the French Revolution is streaming media. (If French peasants had easy access to internet memes, Marie Antoinette probably would have lived a long full life.)

Considering how pissed off most voters are right now, political writer Nick Fields posted last week on social media, “In retrospect, Kamala’s Joy Campaign was a mistake, the 2028 Democratic nominee needs to be angry. JD Vance surely will be angry.”

JD Vance is a singularly repulsive figure, and I’m not sure it makes sense for Democrats to take their cues from him. I agree that a joy-centric campaign might have been a problem for Harris as the sitting vice president for an unpopular incumbent. She couldn’t really do “hope and change.” However, anger wouldn’t have worked any better. Anger doesn’t elections.

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Now, it wouldn’t make sense to pretend that Americans aren’t angry, but we need more than anger to escape our current MAGA prison.

In Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, the villain Bane (Tom Hardy) defeats Batman (Christian Bale) and imprisons him in a dismal hell hole through a set of actions arguably more legal than Trump’s mass deportations.

“There’s a reason why this prison is the worst hell on earth,” Bane explains to a broken Bruce Wayne, “Hope.” Is there a better description of the American experiment under Trump? (Watch below.)

“Every man who has rotted here over the centuries has looked up to the light and imagined climbing to freedom,” Bane says. “So easy ... So simple ... And like shipwrecked men turning to sea water from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying. I learned here that there can be no true despair without hope.”

We can probably all relate to this. We hope that we can escape Trump, but we’re not certain Democrats can make the leap. Will focus-group-driven fear shackle them to misplaced notions of “bipartisanship” and “norms”?

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Most liberals now are like the shattered Bruce Wayne. We’re slowly recovering and preparing for our escape. Like Wayne, we insist that we’re not afraid. We’re angry.(Watch below.)

Bruce Wayne’s anger is passionate, fueled by conviction. He doesn’t come off as scolding, which is a problem for politicians, especially on the left, when their anger is conveyed through lectures and sermons. No one wants to follow someone who’s so consumed by anger that they reject any expression of joy. These are the dreary “anti-brunch” progressives or the John Lithgow from Footloose types who flipped out over Mallory McMorrow dancing in public.

Anger was a theme in the 1992, 2008, and 2020 elections but it wasn’t the base note. Democrats nominated candidates in those cycles who presented as more affable than their closest rival. That’s in part because voters, like most normal people, don’t like angry. It’s draining and not particularly motivating. Although false hope is a prison, Democrats should still offer true hope that life can improve. It’s OK to have brunch and dance or to basically enjoy yourself as a woman (far too many men on the left have an issue with this).

Liberals will likely argue that Trump’s campaigns were only rooted in anger. That’s true to a point, but his hate rallies were joyful celebrations in their perverse way. They offered a twisted sort of hope for a world where MAGA full thuggery was unleashed. After the 2024 election, some Trump voters expressed their delight that they could use the “r-word” slur without any “woke” backlash.

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Most liberals aren’t sociopaths so they don’t get a thrill from how they will oppress and marginalize other people. At worst, they are more likely to revert to professional “deliverism” — how their policies will improve people’s lives whether they like it or not.

In The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne eventually realizes that fear and anger are intertwined, and he must embrace his fear, not reject it.

Bruce Wayne: I fear dying in here, while my city burns, and there’s no one there to save it.

Blind Prisoner: Then make the climb!

Bruce Wayne: How?

Blind Prisoner: As the child did. Without the rope. Then fear will find you again

He’s finally able to escape his prison when he’s willing to make the impossible leap without the security of a rope that only grounds him. He’ll either escape or die trying. There is no safe, sensible center. A terrified Bruce Wayne makes the jump, and a restored Batman climbs out of the pit. (Watch below.)

You can argue that the 2016 and 2024 campaigns very much channeled legitimate fears about a Trump presidency. Why wasn’t that enough to make the leap? But fear alone is only weakness without conviction, without the passion that anger can fuel. Still, fear and anger combined can’t prevail without hope.

When I saw Stevie Nicks this year at Jazz Fest, she ended her set with the Fleetwood Mac classic “Don’t Stop,” which if you were alive at the time, as I was, you’ll remember as the official song for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. The lyrics urge you to never stop “thinking about tomorrow” because “yesterday’s gone.”

“If your life was bad to you. Just think what tomorrow will do.”

This is a song that obviously inspires hope, not anger. Barack Obama had many songs during his 2008 presidential campaign, but at the end of the Democratic National Convention, they played “Signed Sealed Delivered I’m Yours.” It’s an interesting choice, as it’s about a man who strayed but realizes he made a mistake and returns to his love to ask her forgiveness: “Then that time I went and said goodbye. Now I'm back and not ashamed to cry.” He admits he’s “done a lot of foolish things,” but he submits to her mercy: “You got my future in your hands. Here I am, baby.” The hope is in its humility. That’s also far more powerful than anger.