Why is Bill O'Reilly Even Angrier Than Usual Lately?

It has recently come to my attention — that is to say, his yelling woke me up during a few of my early-evening naps — that Bill O’Reilly has become noticeably more angry over the past week or so. Those of you who do not keep your televisions tuned to the Fox News prime-time lineup may say, “But wait: Isn’t anger O’Reilly’s thing? His shtick? His go-to mood?” Not at all, comrades. O’Reilly prides himself on his firm but folksy delivery; indeed, his favorite phrase is “the folks” — his blanket term for his audience and all Americans who are not the media or members of (his other fave phrase) “the far left.”

And so it’s striking to hear how steamed up he’s getting these days when imparting his wisdom via the “Talking Points Memo” that begins each edition of The O’Reilly Factor. Last Monday, O’Reilly addressed what he termed “The Big Lie of the 2016 Campaign.” The “lie”? Oh, you know without me telling you: that politicians are “deceiving Americans into believing that their success and well-being will be almost assured by a federal nanny state” — i.e., increasing aid to those less fortunate than people in Bill O’Reilly’s income bracket.

This is typical Factor material; it’s the tone that has taken on a new harshness. When O’Reilly read his teleprompter containing the words I quoted above, he bellowed them — he did not merely want to put a message across, he wanted to express his outrage, and to evoke outrage in his audience.

The next night, the “Memo” title was “Is The Supreme Court Compromised?,” and O’Reilly went after “the four liberal judges” who “will decide issue[s] based on their political beliefs, not the Constitution.” How he achieved this mind-reading of the judges, and knew the “liberal” ones use “political beliefs” and “conservative” ones do not… well, who can comprehend the full range of the extrasensory mental powers of O’Reilly? My point is that he didn’t merely give his analysis; HE YELLED IT LIKE THIS! He roared; he jabbed the air with the mighty pen that he presumably uses to write all his Killing books.

This is interesting. Why is O’Reilly so angry these days? A couple of things occur to me as factors. I wonder if he’s rattled at the recent reams of publicity his colleague Megyn Kelly is receiving, and whether he’s worked himself into a snit over her comments that he ought to have defended her more forcefully when he interviewed Donald Trump.

I also wonder if O’Reilly is starting to take his oratorical cues from the righteous-fury campaign of Donald Trump, and is ramping up for a rock ‘em-sock ’em Presidential campaign in which he’ll throw his considerable influence behind whoever will be opposing Hillary Clinton. O’Reilly said every night last week that he “cannot see a scenario” in which Trump does not win the Republican nomination. Perhaps O’Reilly sees a way to compete with Megyn Kelly by adapting the opposite of her cool-in-control demeanor, and letting loose his inner hounds of anger.

I thought perhaps I was exaggerating O’Reilly’s new temperament, until I saw his weekly segment with Dennis Miller last Thursday. Mid-way through their bit, Miller paused to say, “I notice in some of your Talking Points that you’ve started to get a little angry.” Sure enough, on Friday night, O’Reilly used the occasion of the death of Prince to inveigh against the “drug epidemic” in America. O’Reilly did his minimal best not to drag a famous dead man into his tirade, but he couldn’t resist saying of Prince that “there are reports that he was drug-involved.” What was the point of this furious Talking Points Memo? That in the golden past of Bill’s youth, “Those who used drugs were stigmatized, until the sex, drugs, and rock and roll culture kicked in.”

Yesiree, Bill O’Reilly is really on a tear these days. He’s flexing his power, stirring up his troops. It makes for exciting viewing, even if you’re never quite sure what he’s so gosh-darned livid about. I’m guessing only Megyn Kelly, Donald Trump, and O’Reilly’s id know for sure, and they ain’t talking — or if they did, they wouldn’t be heard over Bill’s yelling.

The O’Reilly Factor airs weeknights at 8 p.m. on the Fox News Channel.