Anger as a self-limiting motivator

Going back to my early days of activism, in a specific context that's a story for a whole 'nother day, with a group of friends and neighbors trying to organize around a neighborhood problem, I argued that anger, by itself, is self-limiting. If you can only move forward fueled by anger, you're eventually going to lose, because anger simply doesn't last. It's not in human nature for it to last. Eventually you get over it or you burn out, or those around you burn out on you--whichever, you're stopped.

So this comment yesterday by Kevin Drum interested me:

It strikes me that modern American culture rewards conservatives when people are angry and polarized and rewards liberals when people are united and forward looking. (Relatively speaking, of course.) This is why I don't especially think the left needs its own Ann Coulter, or its own Karl Rove. We need effective advocates and smart political operatives, of course, but they need to operate on an entirely different wavelength. Fanning the flames of anger, even in our own cause, produces a political environment that ultimately helps conservatives.

If he's right (and I think he might be), and if I'm right (and, well--do I have to say it?), movement conservatism can't last. Perhaps the sputterings we're seeing now are signs that it's running on fumes even as we speak; perhaps not yet.

But it's an interesting line of thought. Discuss.

(Cross-posted at Preemptive Karma.)