Nasty feelings

Interesting review of 'Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World' in the LSE Review of Books: 
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/09/24/book-review-nervous-states-how-feeling-took-over-the-world-by-william-davies/
The main thesis is that the once dominant modality, reason, crucial for the enlightenment, has been moved into the background by affect. So now affect is dominant; thus the rise of populism and the difficulty in dealing with so-called post truth politics. The point being of course that formerly post-truth would have been undone by rational argument, but now that is no longer effective. That is the story.
In terms of our theme it is worth looking at this from a slightly different angle, and one that does not presume that enlightenment values are no longer valid.
The presumption in all of this is that there is a sort of void between feelings and thoughts. That there is no link between them. But what if there is? What if feelings have an object and irrespective of that, naming the feeling involves cognition. Then to, simplify the story greatly, populism does not just, or can not just appeal to the affective register.