The left sometimes fail to talk to the emotions of the people they want to convince, while the right and the far-right are good at it. For example, humans tend to be afraid of unknown and unusual things, and the far-right connects with that.
True. Far-right and right-wing populist parties appeal to people's emotions better than the left (both "radical" and "moderate") and they connect with the fears of the common people. However, that "fear of the unknown" is clearly instrumented into a "fear of the otherness". The usual suspects are immigrants, as you know well. There's a ghost flying over Europe called xenophobia, with a singular variant named islamophobia.
Just to clarify things -not because of your post, but because some people and media like to establish comparisons with the FN or the 5 Stelle- , there's a radical difference between far-right populism and the new Spanish "movement party" called Podemos on the subject of "otherness". Also, I think that it's possible to deduce that there's an ideological background and motivation behind that speech. That's a huge difference with 'protest' parties like that of Beppe Grillo. Once that's been established, it's fair to criticise platform, discourse and strategy (for good and for bad).
Viewing Islamophobia solely as a variation of xenophobia is an analytical error - and a costly one for the European left.
