Bigger than Bolsonaro

 

Bolonarismo found elective affinity with a real base in Brazilian society. The extreme-right movement is especially popular with evangelical Christians, and it has a virtual lock on the country’s agricultural heartland—two forces growing in influence. In his book, Nunes describes Bolsonarismo as an alliance of classes with contradictory interests united by common enemies and overlapping discourses. It is not so hard to explain why small-scale farmers who may rely on deforestation and the invasion of indigenous territories to maximize their profits would line up behind a president that encourages both. Businessmen at the top of Brazil’s agriculture pyramid have distanced themselves from Bolsonaro, but under him things have been relatively good for the Amazon destroyers, cattle ranchers, and soy exporters.

Nor should international analysts be too surprised that Bolsonarismo has found support among the frustrated petty bourgeoisie, the classic base for fascism. Olavo de Carvalho did well to position himself in the online world of what Nunes calls “the would-be bureaucrat who failed the application (and blames affirmative action), the man who never become an alfa macho (and comes to blame feminism), the adult who feels intellectually inferior (and comes to blame cultural Marxism), and the struggling businessman.”

But Nunes also points to widespread subjective conditions in Brazil, including the spread of “neoliberalism from below” and the “entrepreneurship of the self,” in which every individual sees herself as a microbusiness poised to make it big—or worse, personally to blame for her own poverty. Bolsonarismo perhaps has no more exemplary figure than the life coach, or the grifter selling dubious financial advice in the slums—the man promising you will get rich if you give money to his church or sign up for his YouTube class. This group also did very well on October 2. Paulo Marçal, a millionaire life coach selling a course called The Worst Year of Your Life, was elected to Congress for São Paulo, and the candidate who received the most votes for a Chamber of Deputies seat in the entire country is a twenty-six-year-old evangelical TikTok star from the favela, who built a following by railing against communism and sex before marriage."

READ ARTICLE BY VINCENT BEVINS