Dan Crenshaw - Fortitude: American Resilience in the Era of Outrage

I left my Washington, D.C., office in the Cannon building to go vote on the House floor of the Capitol, as I usually do multiple times a day while Congress is in session. It was spring of 2019, and I had just been sworn in to my first term a few months prior. It was sunny outside, barely above 70 degrees, the air pleasant and crisp, so I avoided the underground tunnels that connect the Capitol to the Congressional offices and crossed Independence Avenue above ground instead. Its a far more enjoyable experience to walk toward the Capitol with its majestic dome in full view, and hard not to be awestruck by the experience of entering the beating heart of our republic.

You never know who you will run into during that five-minute walk. Capitol Hill is teeming with journalists, activists, and tourists, most of whom are rather pleasant, most of the time. That particular day I noticed a group of protestors outside the Capitol. This was not an unusual scene; activists often gather at the steps of the Capitol. It is the Peoples House, after all. But this was an unusual group of protestors, because it wasnt clear what they were protesting for. There were no calls for the passage of a particular bill or attention to a certain issue. Instead, they wore shirts that simply read stay outraged, along with a matching assortment of signs and buttons that appeared to be professionally crafted from an established vendor, not purchased hastily from some ragtag print shop.

I was puzzled. I wondered about the meaning of their slogan, stay outraged. Why this phrase? Why not instead rally around a slogan that more accurately depicted what they protested or advocated for (assuming there was one)? What drew these young people to the slogan and more importantly to the notion that staying outraged was the desired end goal? Perhaps I was simply too unenlightened to understand the value of perpetual outrage?

Perhaps. But unlikely. It was more likely that this small group of activists was born of a larger cultural paradigm, one that has permeated our media and national discourse as of late. It was far more likely that the antagonistic headlines of the last few years had finally succeeded in manipulating the behaviors and emotions of our citizens and directed these activists to the steps of the Capitol to encourage others along the same path of indignation and everlasting anger.

This aimless rage was deliberately designed, intended to produce this exact result.

Its Important to Stay Outraged implored the title of a 2019 op-ed, in the hope that their readers would not fall back into the complacency of their cheerful daily routines. Get outraged and stay outraged exclaimed another headline, equally desperate for sustained irritation. Never lose your sense of outrage, tweeted Senator Bernie Sanders, knowing the most effective political manipulation is achieved by raw emotion. One recent op-ed acknowledged the psychological tax of outrage, giving more in-depth advice: How to #StayOutraged without Losing Your Mind: Self-Care Lessons for the Resistance. Outrage is in vogue, they proclaim, and more than that, it is a necessity. But this story of unrelenting ire goes far beyond the abstract sloganeering of politicians and media: Stay Outraged is also sprawled on countless T-shirts and stickers and buttons for sale across the internet, as these young activists had clearly discovered.

Its a peculiar thought, this notion that if only you were sufficiently informed, aware, and woke, that you would have a duty to exhibit an intense state of fury. The apocalyptic nature of our unjust reality must surely enrage you. It must! Not only that, but once youve achieved an enlightened state of madness, then you must stay that way. Perhaps forever.

Being a normal person with normal concerns, you may read those headlines with healthy skepticism if not outright confusion. Dont we live in the most prosperous nation on earth with a quality of life and freedoms that are the envy of the world? But, respond the outraged,this is just proof you arent paying attention! If you only knew the true depths of disaster, despair, and injustice in our midst, youd rush to join the mob in righteous cultural warfare, scream slogans in solidarity, march arm-in-arm to cancel those who disobey, destroy the careers of those who misspeak, and pile on those who dare to defend anything other than outrage orthodoxy.

A peculiar thought indeed. Let me suggest an alternative.

Outrage is weakness. It is the muting of rational thinking and the triumph of emotion. Despite what youve been hearing and seeing as of late, it is not a virtue. It is not something to be celebrated, nor praised, nor aspired to. It is a deeply human emotioneven understandable at timesbut rarely is it productive, virtuous, or useful. It is an emotion to overcome, not accept, and overcoming it requires mental strength. This book is about acquiring that necessary mental fortitude.

Lets define our terms. What do I mean by outrage? It is a specific term with a specific meaning. Not all forms of outrage are always unjustifiedfar from it. There is such a thing as righteous indignation. This book is not about proper outrage, stemming from real tragedy or wrongdoing or injustice. This is not a book about overcoming true grief. It is about outrage culture, and the newfound tendency to reflexively assume the worst of intentions when reacting to news or commentary or political discourse, and default into an emotionally driven hatred of the other, whoever that may be. It is the petty, weak-minded, and ultimately unproductive response to our neighbors, fellow citizens, and political opponents that has been normalized and even elevated in our culture.