Leadership Quote by Barney Frank

Outrage here isn’t a reaction; it’s a lifestyle accessory. Barney Frank’s line skewers a familiar political species: the people who treat indignation less as a response to wrongdoing than as a renewable resource to mine for identity, attention, and leverage. The joke lands because it doubles back on itself. Being “outraged that they won’t be able to be outraged anymore” exposes outrage as self-perpetuating theater: the performance requires a constant supply of villains, even if the original grievance gets resolved.

Frank’s intent is surgical ridicule with a policy edge. As a combative, media-fluent legislator, he understood how Washington incentives reward perpetual crisis. When one side’s claim to relevance depends on stoking fear or moral panic, compromise becomes existentially threatening; a solved problem would mean fewer cameras, fewer fundraising emails, fewer talking points. The line frames that as addiction: “attached” implies dependence, not conviction.

Subtextually, he’s also warning his own team not to be hypnotized by the spectacle. Outrage can be politically useful, but it’s corrosive when it becomes the end rather than the means. By making the emotion look absurdly recursive, Frank tries to strip it of its moral prestige. He’s arguing that some actors don’t want accountability or reform; they want the churn. In a political culture increasingly driven by outrage cycles, the quip reads less like a partisan jab and more like an anatomy lesson in modern attention economics.