A Review of Greg Gutfeld's Book--The Joy of Hate: How to Triumph Over Whiners in the Age of Phony Outrage

Watching the news can be a great source of stress and anxiety.  We have enough of our own problems to worry about, but watch the news for any length of time and your stress levels will compound exponentially.  How can we be responsible citizens who follow the latest issues without sinking into depression and despair?  The answer if simple--start listening to Greg Gutfeld. 

Gutfeld satirizes the political issues of the day, making them more palatable and easy on the psyche.  His outrageous discourse and debate opens sniper fire on hot topics, but then adds a comedic twist so the rational and sane among us can digest and process them without getting into a funk. He's a political shock jock, igniting his adversaries with repetitive truth bombs which are shockingly refreshing to his support base.  Trump's election should be the proof in the pudding that ordinary Americans appreciate someone who isn't afraid to say what we are all thinking.

Greg Gutfeld can be found weekdays on Fox's round table The Five and on Saturday evenings on The Greg Gutfeld Show.  His laser sharp jabs are reserved for left-wing nut jobs, but on occasion, he takes a shot at righties when warranted.  Reading one of Gutfeld's books, however, gives you a chance to savor his ingenious wit uninterrupted by a panel of other guest voices.

The Joy of Hate:  How to Triumph Over Whiners in the Age of Phony Outrage was published in 2014,  but it covers an evergreen topic that is completely relevant, maybe even more so, in today's age of fake news, rising socialism, and political correctness.

Once upon a time, we were all just "Americans" who were treated as equals under the Constitution.  We took pride in our shared heritage of morality and values.  These days, a great rift divides us, and someone is always mad about something--usually the Left blasting the Right for trying to stay us on the course of freedom and responsibility.  Gutfeld's thesis is this:  "most outrage is manufactured for emotional release and attention gratification."

Gutfeld humorously jumps from one news headline to another pointing out the inherent hypocrisy of the Left.  For example, the Left labels all white conservatives racist, yet when Herman Cain rose to become a political candidate for presidency in 2012 under the Republican ticket, he was vilified by the Left.  Why?  Cain "was a successful black man who didn't blindly follow the liberal assumptions that all black people are supposed to follow."  Such success destroys the liberal narrative and forced worldview.  When it comes to women, the same holds true.  Feminism only supports women with a Leftist view, but conservative women are publicly ridiculed.

Gutfeld hammers the false sense of tolerance the Left pretends to endorse.  He calls tolerance "a way to bludgeon people into shutting up, piping down, and apologizing, when the attacked are often the ones who hold the key to common sense."  Yes, a person on the Left claims to be supremely tolerant until they meet a conservative.  Gutfeld asserts that our country is under attack, not by offensive people, but by people who claim to be offended.  Aptly put, Gutfeld suggests we all follow this definition of tolerance:  I leave you alone, you leave me alone.

Ironically in the age of Trump, conservatives are the ones accused of fascism, yet it's the Left who is only tolerant as long as you agree with them.  Once you disagree with them, they become intolerant of you, yet they expect you to be tolerant of their intolerance?  It makes a person go cross-eyed!

Gutfeld mocks the Left's attack on Christian values while it coddles radical Islam.  For example, when the Fort Hood massacre took place, Obama and stooges called the incident "workplace violence," all in the name of tolerance.  Gutfeld coined a new term for this--Islamophobia-phobia, or the fear of being accused of Islamophobia.  Gutfeld quipped, "What are we going to see on the walls next to the 'no smoking' signs?  Posters that exclaim, 'No massacres in the name of Allah'"?  Gutfeld jokes that calling the Fort Hood massacre workplace violence is like calling Pearl Harbor an air show.

Yes, Gutfeld exposes the Left's trickery with euphemisms to force their agenda on us through lies and verbal manipulation.  Taxing the rich is called "paying our fair share," and class warfare is dubbed "a war on equity," which makes Gutfeld wonder whether rain is going to start being called "solar moisture" and child molestation "impatient courtship."

It's no secret the Left despises American exceptionalism.  They eradicate our superiority as a nation through subversive tolerance that relegates us to just being another country.  Gutfeld compared Obama's disregard for terrorists in Syria like one would distastefully witness a loud party across the street.  Such a view imposes a ceiling to our success and world leadership, and thankfully, Trump is plowing right through all of this.

The Left despises our strong military too because without it, our enemies would crush us, but in the progressive mindset, we deserve it.  Because the military kills  people so we can live and be free, this is considered intolerant.

Gufeld blows the Left's cover of capitalizing on illegal voters to gain ground by pointing out the hypocrisy of requiring an I.D. to buy cigarettes or alcohol but not to vote.  The Left claims an I.D. is a "discriminatory effect on minority voters."  The Left argues I.D.s are like a poll tax because they cost money, especially when you have to purchase a birth certificate for verification.  Expecting illegals to do this is intolerant, they say.  Obviously, the real issue is illegals are afraid to get an I.D. because they are criminals who would be voting illegally, but that shouldn't be our problem.  As Gutfeld also points out, how weird is it that Leftists call a law requiring an I.D. for voting illegal, but then claim you can't call illegals illegal?  It defies logic!

Even Gutfeld's chapter titles are hilarious.  In his "Pirates of Penance" chapter, he highlights how anyone who violates tolerance standards must pay penance for their actions.  Many celebrities who dare buck the Leftist norms are forced to retract statements, tweet apologies, and raise awareness regarding their flub.  Still, penance is never enough.  Their entire careers must be destroyed to satiate the Left and make them feel important.  He refers to Twitter as the "new wussy path of phony penance" and wonders if people used to send smoke signals as apologies before social networks.

Gutfeld pits demonstrations of the Tea Party against that of the Occupy Wall Street crowd, and the comparison is quite stark in contrast.  In fact, he explains Occupy Wall Street only happened as a result of no more decent rock festivals.

Rock stars aren't exempt from Gutfeld's stinging wit.  Musicians say nothing if a liberal uses their music on the campaign trail, but if a conservative uses a song, there's an uproar. Jackson Browne fought John McCain on using "Running on Empty" and reached a settlement, "providing Browne with his first revenue since 1982."  John Cougar Mellencamp also asked McCain to stop using his stuff, whom Gutfeld jokes linked together three names to spell "crap."

Gutfeld warns of the government getting involved with childhood obesity.  Since the Left wants to control our healthcare system, they want to dictate what we eat.

When a porn star was applauded for reading to elementary children, Gutfeld notes, "This not progress.  It's just another step in the direction of  a shame-free society, where every behavior is excused because we're just too cowardly to do anything else but pass the lube.  Which is a long way of saying:  California."

Huge jabs are aimed at the fallacy of global warming.  Gutfeld jokes how many times the moniker has been changed when weather models are disproved by actual science.  He wonders what it will be called next--"weather variability" or "manic meteorology?"  He pushes it further by pointing out global warming has become a religion for the Left.  Today, we can see through the Left's Green New Deal that the elite socialist Democratic Party pretends to be concerned about the environment only so they can use this to control the American people.  The Left flips out when you mess with their narrative by pointing out the Earth has been cooling for 6,000 years.  In fact, this is where you will see the Left's intolerance in all its glory--when you threaten their false assumptions with facts.

Here are a few more zingers from Gutfeld on the noted subjects:

Tolerance
If you ignore the laws of tolerance, or do not bend to the cries of manufactured outrage, then you run the risk of being called something supremely horrible:  a bully.

Racism
If you call someone racist, you shut down the debate before it ever starts.

Socialism
But historians know:  What begins as a utopian vision, always--always--ends in bloodshed.  Because you have to force a utopia on a free people.  Free people want to pursue their own happiness, but a one-size-fits-all approach requires herding the free, against their will, into the state's idea of what's right.  Then it's not utopia.  It's Uganda.  It's 100 million dead.

To quote the great Milton Friedman, "When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition."

Radicalism
Radicalism isn't about creating something new, but destroying the old.

Yes, Gutfeld wisely, yet hilariously, points out all the liberal blind spots.  He claims to have cracked open fortune cookies with deeper thinking and insists so many of these well-known liberals will be replaced by holograms eventually.  Put a Leftist on his show and it's the best way to see how sensible the Right is.

Conclusion
What hope does Gutfeld offer us in the age of tolerance and feigned outrage?  He reminds us when we are knocking on death's door, we will forget the fleeting outrage and only remember the happy experiences we had with our families and real people.

Gutfeld concludes, "So there is no joy in hate.  It's not worth it.  Get out of the outrage pool, and into the party."


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