Grievance politics is easy. Dignity is trickier – and, all too often, missing

Unlike traditional politics, which revolves around political parties, grievance politics relies on the power of personality, writes Amy Remeikis.

At the centre of most political grievance is a demand for dignity. This is easily exploited; it is easy, and, in this climate, fruitful, to claim that whatever indignity you are facing – economic pressure, the inability to get ahead, housing insecurity, education gap, disconnect from community – is because someone else is receiving more than you.

The British political theorist, Bernard Crick, defined traditional politics as “the activity by which differing interests within a given unit of rule are conciliated by giving them a share in power in proportion to their importance to the welfare and survival of the whole community”, offering up politics as a “solution to the problem of order which chooses conciliation rather than violence or coercion”.

But grievance politics revolves around the opposite. It relies on people choosing violence, be that social, cultural or physical in service of their own individual needs.

It is fuelled and flamed by politicians deliberately fanning the licks of fear and anger they know exist and exploiting them for political gain. And through that anger and fear, they grow their own personal political movement. Facts don’t matter here, only feelings.

Nigel Farage promised an unstoppable Britain with Brexit. But, now, with most of the country admitting the Europe exit was a failure and has caused long-term harm to the nation and its people, Farage – one of the architects of the mess – is enjoying a resurgence as the man to fix the problems he created. It doesn’t matter that he has no answers – he has fingers and he knows how to point them.

Grievance politics is lucrative for those who know how to funnel anger. There is a reason one of the highest-paid TV personalities in Australia is pivoting to........

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