I think the 'outrage' keeps people on their toes, albeit also including probably plenty of stuff that doesn't need that much outrage.
Along the lines of "follow the money," I ask myself, who profits from stoking outrage, and why?
1) I think angry people are more motivated to vote, so there is function in politics to not advertise how content the electorate could be.
2) I think media profits from stoking outrage. News is shifting away from a presentation of facts to a presentation of narratives. Narratives are more engaging, more entertaining. TV news agencies at large networks used to operate at a financial loss, but news now is a strictly a for-profit enterprise, ratings and profits. In this regard, there is profit in presenting narratives your audience wants to hear. You don't want to turn your viewers off, you want to excite them and engage them, so outrage them.
3) I think a fundamental attribute of human nature is a need for a sense of belonging. I think people have a more acute and satisfying sense of "us" if they can cast themselves as distinct from an identifiable "them." I think this is leveraged by 1) and 2) above, for profit.
So things are safer, richer, gentler, kinder, and just generally better than ever before, yet at the same time few receive that message because there is no profit in presenting it.
I think of it as an outrage engine. Outrage is a manufactured product, a form of propaganda, and the purpose of its manufacture is to manipulate you; your vote, and how you spend your money. Outrage is a feature of our economy, not a feature of our ideology.
In fact, ideology and outrage are like oil and water. If you shake the bottle hard enough, yes, they mix, but ideology is subject to debate, revision, introspection, reflection, all the things that outrage prevents. And if you set the bottle down for a minute, outrage and ideology readily repel each other and become easily distinguishable.
