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Anger is fun!  Everyone tries to downplay this fact.  (Driving drunk has a similar stigma.)  To be honest, I resist the joys of anger myself.  But, anger MUST be fun.  Huge crowds of people pretend to be really stupid so that they have an excuse to be mad.  That's evidence.  For example -- several years ago, I was watching the Ricki Lake show, right?  (The topic might have been "Drop that Zero and Get with a Hero," or something like that.  I think that was a common Ricki topic . . . though, in retrospect, that might have been more Jenny Jones.  Maury did the paternity tests, so that wasn't his topic.  Montel rarely rhymed.  I guess it doesn't really matter.)  There was a girl on the stage who was complaining that her boyfriend was exactly like the stereotype of Puerto Rican men.  (I didn't know that there WAS a stereotype about Puerto Rican men before watching that episode.  Colorado doesn't have a large Puerto Rican community, so the stereotypes related to Latin America that I heard in my youth are more general.  Evidently, the Puerto Rican male stereotype has something to do with being lazy.)  So, when the girl said that her boyfriend's behavior resembled the stereotype, Ricki responded by asking -- in a really snarky tone -- "Are you saying that Puerto Ricans are lazy?"  The woman OBVIOUSLY didn't say that.  I heard her.  Ricki heard her.  The audience heard her.  It's not like her words were spun by pundits or taken out of context.  She had JUST spoken.  But, the audience went CRAZY.  BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  I'm pretty sure that they were pretending to be stupid.  They can't ALL have been that stupid.  They just liked being mad.  The girl on the stage didn't defend herself -- she just sat their looking glum.  I think she was playing dumb too out of courtesy -- she knows how much fun being angry is, so she didn't want to deny the audience its opportunity.  

This pattern happens ALL THE TIME.  I heard a good example today.  John McCain or one of his people or someone must have said that he is the Democrats' "worst nightmare".  In response, CNN posed the Ricki Lake-like question: "When a country is evenly divided politically, is it wise to call yourself the opposing party's worst nightmare?"  The question wasn't super clear, so ironically, anyone who would fall for it probably isn't smart enough to understand it.  The gist, of course, is that independent voters wouldn't want to vote for the WORST nightmare of democrats and that, for the purpose of the general election, McCain should be more centrist.  The problem is that McCain almost certainly didn't mean that he is THE MOST reactionary conservative on the planet or that his PRESIDENCY would be the worst democrat nightmare . . . he meant that his CANDIDACY is the worst Democrat nightmare because he has a really good shot at winning . . . duh.  But, people love outrage, so there you go. 

My favorite example ever happened when I was in high-school.  My friends and I were in the drive-through line at Burger King.  One of my friends thought that he recognized a girl in the car behind us, so he waved.  The driver of the car behind us got out, shouted, "what the fuck?!" and threw a penny at my friend's car.  (I always kind of wished that the police had shown up: Now, how did this altercation start? -- well, officer, the guy in front of us smiled and waved, so I had to defend myself -- yes, well that makes sense.)  Anger is so much fun that people will Rickilakeify friendly smiles.  I should really give it a whirl.  The next person who, oh I don't know, has ears in front of me is really in for some trouble!