Why has hate become so profitable?

PUBLISHED: October 11, 2025 | www.baltimoresun.com

Like sex, hate sells. Possibly even more so. The modern economy of outrage rewards those who can turn resentment into revenue. To denounce another as the worst possible type of person is to buy a ticket to fame. It pays dividends, gets clicks, builds audiences and keeps people listening. In the digital marketplace of ideas, indignation is the only currency that never devalues.

Truth, however, is bankrupt. We have grown so addicted to emotional certainty that facts are now treated as inconveniences. Few care to examine whether their assumptions are wrong, or whether the person they loathe is not, in fact, a monster. The only “facts” that matter are the ones that affirm what we already believe. Those who control the levers of information — media outlets, social media platforms, activists and politicians — understand this perfectly. They’ve learned that rage keeps people watching, sharing and donating.

It’s a strange moment in our culture. Good news no longer travels. Even when there is progress — record charitable giving, declining global poverty, medical breakthroughs — few seem to care. Hope is quiet; hysteria is loud. What sells isn’t the story of a community rebuilding, but the image of that community burning. We are not drawn to calm, but to chaos. We crave villains because they give shape to our anxieties. We want to see the boogeyman.

But here’s the truth: There are very few boogeymen left. At least not the kind that once haunted America. Rarely do we see organized, racially motivated killings in the United States today, though there has been a distressing rise in antisemitic attacks since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel. But the days of the Ku Klux Klan marching in the open or white supremacist cells bombing federal buildings have long passed. What remains are small, miserable, irrelevant groups — pale imitations of what once terrified the public. Yet they dominate our airwaves.

Why? Because fear is profitable. Networks, influencers and political campaigns have discovered that outrage converts into engagement, and engagement converts into money. The algorithm rewards anger, not reason. The more you hate, the more you scroll. The more you share, the more they earn. The villains we see on our screens are not reflections of reality, but of the market.

Meanwhile, the countless good people who make this country function go unnoticed. The teacher who stays late to help a struggling student, the firefighter who risks his life in a burning home, the small business owner who employs people in his community — these are the quiet heroes. But they don’t trend. They don’t drive ratings. And so, we barely see them.

We’ve inverted our moral priorities. The destructive are celebrated; the constructive are ignored. Outrage has become a form of entertainment, and the producers of hate are its most successful showrunners. This is not to deny that real hatred still exists — it does — but to point out that much of what we now consume as “hate” is curated theater, engineered to sustain attention.

The result is a nation that increasingly mistakes anger for virtue. We’ve come to believe that the louder we condemn, the more righteous we are. But moral noise is not moral clarity. It’s a performance. And as long as we reward it, the performance will continue.

If we truly wish to weaken hate, we must stop buying tickets to its show. Stop amplifying those who profit from division. Stop feeding the algorithm of outrage. Start sharing what is good, noble and constructive about this country — because there is much of it left.

The real rebellion in an age of hate is not to hate back. It is to refuse to be manipulated. The media cannot manufacture outrage without our participation. The demagogue cannot rise without our applause. And the hate-peddler cannot sell without our attention.

America’s greatest strength has always been its capacity for renewal — for rediscovering its decency after moments of darkness. Perhaps it’s time to rediscover that again. Not by pretending evil doesn’t exist, but by refusing to make it our entertainment.

Until we do, hate will remain one of the most profitable products in America — and we’ll keep paying for it with our peace of mind.

Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.

©️ 2025 Baltimore Sun