Throughout his writings, Reverend Martin Luther King explained that white moderates who claimed friendship to the negro cause but rejected social disorder and cautioned patience and calm were more of a stumbling block to freedom than the frank racists of the KKK.  That stumbling block to change seems to be recreated in the psychology of many prominent conservatives writing about the current presidential election.  The permeating subtext across the writing of elite conservatives ranges from concern to contempt to fear of the righteous anger of patriotic Americans.

Anger is the fuel of political freedom.  The misconstruction of right-wing anger by conservative elites is becoming more of a stumbling block to saving the Republic than the open hatred of conservatism by the left.  Radio conservatives are interacting with real people, so they tend to be more open to the justified anger of their listeners.  But many elite conservative writers read like heads separated from hearts, more likely to write about Edmund Burke than my friend Ed, a laid off factory worker.  They seem to be more concerned about Ed becoming fanatic than the open borders and bad trade policies that cost Ed his job.

There are two principal reasons conservative elites fear anger on the right.  First, they were educated at left-wing universities, because those are the only kind there are.  Though they don't know it, right-wing elites were brainwashed at those universities to believe that a fascist lurks within every ordinary American, itching to pop out with guns blazing if allowed to get angry.  Second, prominent conservative thinkers are comfortably employed and ensconced in life.  While the destruction of the economy and borders of our Republic is most troubling indeed, it is not personal, as it is for Ed.

Anger is among the first emotions in life.  A newborn baby, eyes still swollen and shut, asserts: I exist, I feel, if you hurt me (or not), you'll hear my anger.  Anger provides vital energy for protection and survival.  It is the emotional state induced by the life-sustaining impulse to protect, to defend against or attack a perceived threat.  Healthy anger is hardwired into the nervous system as a reaction to pain and suffering.  Righteous anger is the highest form of healthy anger.  It is the beneficial force for good that forms in the self-respecting hearts of principled people who have been lied to and who are suffering because of it.  Righteous anger forms under conditions of oppression when moral, legal, or personal contracts are broken.  It is the force that impels, sustains, and advances political freedom.  In the fullness of time, it is the righteousness of anger that determines if it is creative or destructive.

There is a mistaken notion that the heroes of liberty are the authors of the great documents articulating human rights.  The philosophers and writers play their part.  But it is the nerves and muscles and blood in the veins of righteous men who decide, "We will fight; we may perish, but this will not stand" that enable freedom.  The yield of righteous passions is enshrined in documents of liberty and justice.  It is because righteous anger arises again and again in the hearts of oppressed people that those documents of freedom remain alive.

In recent years, the greatest threat to the survival of the Republic has not been from the left wing or from the foreign enemy.  It is a result of the righteous anger against the "blame America first" worldview being degraded, dragged, and drugged out of the hearts of patriotic people.

Despite all the illegality and abuse inflicted on the American people by unchecked government, the right-wing pundits still counsel, "Beware of anger."  It is abominable that cosseted conservative writers, purposed to sound brilliant while resisting change, are railing against the too-little, too-late anger that has finally appeared, perhaps in great part because of the candidacy of Donald Trump.  The Tea Party movement failed because they stifled the righteous expression of their anger.

Unrighteous anger is a generally unconscious defense of adaptive self-delusion.  It is a transference of unhealthy emotion away from the actual causes of harm to a presumably safer, more convenient scapegoat.  But the big lie that any anger in Americans of traditional values will transmogrify into violence against minorities is indelibly engrained in the educated mind on both the right and the left.  In truth, it is amazing that there is so little of that noxious transmogrification, so little resurgence of historical hate crimes, in light of what has been inflicted on the ideals and opportunities of Americans.

A comparison of the political effects of the unrighteous anger of the left to the political paralysis of the anger-phobic right explains why the left wing is crushing conservatism across most battlefronts.  Take the case of Jew-hating.  Contemporary Jew-hating trends of the left are styled around rejecting the prophetic deliverance of Jews to their sacred homeland.  Contemporary Jew-hating promotes divestment, boycotts, and sanctions against Israel.  These highly successful political tactics arise out of grassroots anger, righteous or not.  Tactics such as economic boycott were essential to the civil rights movement.

These effective methods of political action are almost never encouraged by conservative leaders.  Why not?  Because they are afraid of the anger and neither understand nor trust the inherent restraint of Judeo-Christian righteousness.

The writing of right-wing pundits about the new angry American falls into two categories: a patronizing minimization or a hysterical apprehension of fanaticism.  On the one hand, clucking conservatives belittle the righteously angry as "disaffected" or "indignant."  Worse are the mealy-mouthed Ivy League staccato talkers ("But, but, but brownshirts, brownshirts!") who see a fascist in every American who loves his country.  Conservative writers are as fully brainwashed against Americans as are progressives.  Jeb! has supporters; Trump has followers.

The so-called conservative pundits with the deep cerebral folds generally make it clear that if America is lost, better that she goes out with a whimper.  So the bums never get thrown out.  Obama and Jeh Johnson can stick it to America again, defunding border protection, because there's not enough righteous anger left to stop them.

Why don't the supposedly brilliant thinkers on the right seize upon the energy of the people's ire instead of disparaging it?  Why do they call for sober reflection and reasoned debate in the face of national catastrophe?  Because for them the decimation of job growth and the erasing of our borders are troubling, ill-advised, even foreboding, but not personal.  They don't live where Ed lives, across from the big green house on Pine Street.  It was so well kept once.  Now the paint is peeling, and the yard is a mud pit.  Young men speaking Spanish come and go all hours of the day and night.  They keep to themselves, but doors slam and car engines roar.  There's a barking dog on a four-foot chain, and some days they throw food out to him.  The cops come by when Ed calls, but say there's nothing they can do.