Does a lot of the anger among consrvatives stem from... ? [View all]

I was reading a book by Stephen King the other day, and a quote from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, which is the beginning of the novel, jumped out at me:

Now, I'm no psychiatrist or psychologist, but now and then I see something that makes me want to connect the dots, and this quote did. It made me wonder how much of the recent anger and hatred in this country is due to people just focusing on negative "news" and not having (or wanting) any channel for relief or escape from it.

Here in DU, most members seem to be die-hard Democrats, but yet there is a lot of levity, humor, cartoons, animal videos, stuff on science, cooking, photography, and lots of other subjects. Yet, back when Conservative Underground was still online, their forums were all about bashing Democrats. Sure there were a few other subjects, but they were rarely used; a humor section just had a few cartoons from years previously. Did these folks not have any interests or hobbies besides partisan politics? And is this true of mainstream conservatives?

So I have to wonder what a committee of PhD sociologists would say about this, given that first sentence in Shirley's book. Do distractions from reality help people [fill in the blank]?