Sir, – Eoin Ó Broin's welcome admission of Sinn Féin's strategy as "left populism" gives rise to obvious truths (Pat Leahy, "Government own-goals are gifting the initiative to Sinn Féin", Analysis, September 29th).
Modern political populism whether “left” or “right” is fuelled by anger and manufactured online rage. The enemy is always a “deep state” or “the establishment” conspiring with a complicit “mainstream media”, and the solution is always a political rising of “ordinary working people” that sweeps away “the tired old parties”. The results of these populist “movements” are chaos, division, and disorder such as Brexit, and Donald Trump’s America.
At least let us accept these truths as we fall into the hypnotic spell of contemporary political populism in Ireland. – Yours, etc,
Cllr JOHN MULLEN,
(Fianna Fáil),
Tinahely,
Arklow,
Co Wicklow .