‘Fake Angry’: Freshman Democrat Reveals ‘Perpetually Outraged’ Colleagues Are Totally Different Behind Closed Doors

Freshman Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-NC) called out some of his House colleagues on Monday, claiming that they “fake” outrage to get attention from anger-hungry media.

“I’m still brand new to Congress. I’ve only been there 100 days, and I don’t know if I’m not supposed to say this out loud, but it’s true and important. And if you don’t know this, you need to,” Jackson began, in a clip that had over 1.3 million views by Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s really clear from working there for just a few months that most of the really angry voices in Congress are totally faking it. These people who have built their brands around being perpetually outraged. It’s an act,” Jackson continued, adding:

I’ve seen a bunch of examples. Here’s one. I’ve been in committee meetings that are open to the press and committee meetings that are closed. The same people who act like maniacs during the open meetings are suddenly calm and rational during the closed ones. Why? Because there aren’t any cameras in the closed meetings, so their incentives are different. What I’ve seen is that members of Congress are surrounded by negative incentives. There are rewards for bad behavior. You know what? The big one is being able to reach you.

The big thing that modern media and modern politicians have learned is that if they can keep you angry, they’ll hold your attention. And they both want your attention. So if you’re a politician and you show certain media outlets that you can help them keep their audience angry, they’ll give you their audience. And because so many politicians are willing to play that game now, they’re in competition with each other to see how fake angry they can be.

So that’s real bad. But here’s something good. What I love about this, about communicating with you directly, is that the incentives are different. They can be positive. They can be about speaking to you with respect and real information and in a normal tone of voice. Because if I can talk to you directly, I don’t have to yell.

And if you don’t have to yell to be heard, the whole conversation changes. So going forward, when you hear some enraged member of Congress say something absurd, your first question shouldn’t be how can they possibly believe that. It should be? Do we think they actually do? Because they probably don’t. And for those who want to see politics look less like WWE, I will keep you posted.

Watch the full clip above.

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