The Angertainment Administration

In 2016, Donald J. Trump was elected president of the United States. He benefitted from the fact that for more than 20 years the democratic nominee in the election. Hillary Clinton had been savaged—attacked, pummeled, denigrated, and demeaned—by the angertainment industry.

Mrs. Clinton was a high-value target for angertainers. Attacks on her reliably generated likes, shares, outrage, and engagement. Any time there was a slow news day, angertainers dialed up an attack on Mrs. Clinton.

When she became the Democratic nominee for president, angertainers amplified all the negative things they had said about her in the past. When Mrs. Clinton used the same kind of system that Colin Powell used to manage her email, Angertainment, Inc. was ready to exploit that and rage against her. When hackers stole Democratic email messages and leaked them, angertainers magnified the “drops” to hurt Mrs. Clinton’s campaign

When Russian tried to use social media to impact the election they didn’t do a very good job. The messages were clumsy. The mechanics of how social media works were not as well understood then. They didn’t know what they were doing. And yet, when the messages were released, they were picked up by Angertainment, Inc. and did damage Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

The investigation after the elections did not find a direct connection between Trump and the Russian effort to sabotage the Clinton campaign. However, a dozen Russian intelligence officers were indicted for hacking-related crimes. Unfortunately, the Russians who were indicted live in Russia. They have not been brought to trial.

After he was elected president the first time, Trump was surrounded by a group of well-meaning people who tried to guide the new president in the direction of other presidents. They wanted to help him become a leader who cared about all the people in the nation, whether they voted for him or not.

Trump spent four years uncomfortably trying to be a somewhat conventional president working with people who did not kowtow to his wishes.

A Transformation 

Trump lost the 2020 election. 

During the next four years, Trump was transformed into the nation’s foremost living angertainer. He provided engaging content for angertainment media. In return, the angertainment media kept promoting him in their content which was tailored to engage the far-right “base” of the Republican Party.

While people like Ron Desantis tried, nobody could displace Trump as the Angertainer-in-Chief. The structure of the primary system made Trump’s nomination inevitable.

Upon winning reelection, Trump has surrounded himself with people who are always willing to play the role of a sycophant in his presence. In some instances, the people truly are there simply to do the president’s bidding. In other cases, the individuals are clever, well-informed, and have an agenda. And significantly, at least 23 people in the administration have had experience creating angertainment content on Fox news and similar outlets. Not only is Trump an angertainer, but he has also created an angertainment administration.

People who want to try to communicate with Trump try to get themselves on one of his favorite angertainment channels. The angertainment industry responds to messaging by Trump to unleash online mobs, either on people Trump wants to crush or companies he wants to cower.

What is angertainment? 

Is it something new? What is the relationship between angertainment and social media? Is Angertainment, Inc. profiting by operating businesses that are destroying American democracy?

At a time when pundits and pollsters are trying to explain the bitter partisanship that permeates politics in America today, the concept of an “angertainment industry” is useful for helping us understand what is happening.

Angertainment, Inc. is a small segment of the entertainment industry that is exerting an oversized influence on America today.

This website is an effort to define the word angertainment and understand its roots in the human psyche, its evolution, the catalytic effects of technology on its growth, and the impact angertainment is having on American civil society.