John Harris raises some important issues in his article (Labour’s big relaunch won’t solve its biggest problem: this government doesn’t speak human, 1 December), but it’s crucial to dig deeper into the relationship between politics and emotion. Politicians like Donald Trump and Nigel Farage are not more “human” than those in the centre or on the left. They just know how to manipulate dark human emotions – fear, anger and resentment – in societies where there is profound inequality, very little taxation of the rich and barely regulated privatisation of all that makes civilised life possible – health services, education, water, energy and transport.
They particularly know how to manipulate resentment – the emotion that underlies fascism – when so many people struggle for survival as they watch the smug satisfaction of those who don’t.
