I have often discussed in columns what I call our “age of rage.” There may be no more defining moment of that age than what unfolding today in the Capitol as Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., screamed about gun control. Various Democratic including former House Majority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md, tried to calm Bowman. However, after Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky, asked him to stop yelling Bowman shouted “I was screaming before you interrupted me,” which could now go down as the epitaph for our age. …

The point is not the merits. This is an important national debate and the underlying facts continued to be debated, including statements from President Joe Biden that some of us have challenged.

However, this scene captured how rage has replaced reason in our public discourse.

[To borrow a word from my friend Andrew Malcolm, I’d amend this to call it the Age of Inchoate Rage. Rational rage might be appropriate at times, but this is performative rage as a norm. Bowman’s a clown for whom the rage is just the gag. — Ed]