“It will take Brazil decades to understand what happened in that nebulous year of 2018, when its voters chose Jair Bolsonaro to preside over the country.
Army captain expelled from the corporation for organizing a terrorist act; a seven-term deputy known not for the two bills he managed to pass in 28 years, but for the machinations of the underworld that include allegations of “cracking”, hiring relatives and involvement with militias; winner of the national champion trophy of eschatology, lack of education and offenses of all shades of prejudice that can be listed.
Although his speech is in denial of the “old politics”, Bolsonaro, in fact, represents not its denial, but the worst of it. He is the materialization of the most nefarious, most authoritarian and most unscrupulous side of the Brazilian political system. But – and this is the point I want to discuss today – it is far from something that came out of nowhere or sprouted from the ground trampled by the denial of politics, fueled in the years leading up to the elections.
On the contrary, as a researcher of the relationship between culture and political behavior, I am increasingly convinced that Bolsonaro is a very faithful expression of the average Brazilian, a portrait of the way of thinking about the world, society and politics that characterizes the typical citizen of the world. our country.
When I refer to the “average Brazilian”, I am obviously not talking about the image romanticized by the media and popular imagination, of the receptive, creative, supportive, fun and “malandro” Brazilian. I mean its darker and, unfortunately, more realistic version, as my research and experience have shown.
In the “real world” Brazilians are prejudiced, violent, illiterate (in letters, politics, science... in almost everything). He is racist, sexist, authoritarian, self-interested, moralistic, cynical, gossipy, dishonest.
The civilizational advances that the world has experienced, especially from the second half of the 20th century, inevitably arrived in the country. They materialized in legislation, in public policies (for inclusion, to combat racism and machismo, to criminalize prejudice), in educational guidelines for schools and universities. But when it comes to ingrained values, it takes much more to change cultural patterns of behavior.
Machismo was made a crime, which reduces its public and open manifestations. But it survives in the population's imagination, in the daily life of private life, in affective relationships and in work environments, on social networks, in whatsapp groups, in daily jokes, in comments among “trusted” friends, in small groups where there is some guarantee that no one will report you.
The same happens with racism, with prejudice against the poor, the Northeastern, the homosexuals.
Forbidden to express himself, he survives internalized, repressed not out of conviction arising from cultural change, but out of fear of the act that can lead to punishment. That's why political correctness, around here, was never an expression of awareness, but something frowned upon for “hammering the naturalness of everyday life”.
If there were advances – and they are, yes, real – in gender relations, in the inclusion of blacks and homosexuals, it was less because of the cultural overcoming of prejudice than because of the pressure exerted by legal and police instruments.
But, as always happens when a human feeling is repressed, it is stored somehow. It accumulates, it inflates and, one day, it will find a way to overflow. (...)
It was something similar that happened to the “average Brazilian”, with all their repressed and, with great difficulty, hidden prejudices, who saw this possibility of extravasation in a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. Behold, he had the possibility to choose, as his representative and maximum leader of the country, someone who could be and say everything he also thinks, but who cannot express because he is an “ordinary citizen”.
Now this “ordinary citizen” has a voice. He in fact feels represented by the President who offends women, homosexuals, Indians, Northeasterners. He has the feeling of being personally in power when he sees the nation's top leader use vulgar language, poorly worded phrases, profanity and insults to attack those who think differently. He feels important when his “myth” extols ignorance, lack of knowledge, common sense and verbal violence to defame scientists, teachers, artists, intellectuals, as they represent a way of seeing the world that his ignorance itself does not allow understanding.
This citizen is empowered when the political leaders he has elected deny environmental problems, as they are announced by scientists who he himself sees as useless and contrary to his religious beliefs. He takes deep pleasure when his greatest ruler makes moralistic accusations against disaffected ones, and when he preaches the death of This citizen is empowered when the political leaders he has elected deny environmental problems, as they are announced by scientists who he himself sees as useless and contrary to his religious beliefs. He takes deep pleasure when his greatest ruler makes moralistic accusations against disaffected people, and when he preaches the death of “bandits” and the destruction of all opponents.
When watching the daily horror show produced by the “myth”, this citizen is not touched by disgust, by the shame of others or by the rejection of what he sees. On the contrary, he feels the Jair that lives inside each one of them, who speaks exactly what he would like to say, who pours out his repressed and hidden version in the underworld of his deepest and truest self.
The “average Brazilian” does not understand the gimmicks of the democratic system and how it works, the independence and autonomy between the powers, the need for isonomy of the judiciary, the importance of political parties and the debate of ideas and projects that is the responsibility of the National Congress. .
It is this political ignorance that makes him orgasm when the President encourages attacks on Parliament and the STF, instances seen by the “ordinary citizen” as slow, bureaucratic, corrupt and unnecessary. Destroying them, therefore, in his view, is not a threat to the entire democratic system, but a necessary condition for making it work.
This Brazilian does not go to the street to defend a lunatic and mediocre ruler; he will cry out for his own mediocrity to be recognized and valued, and to feel welcomed by other lunatics and mediocres who form an army of puppets whose strength supports the government that represents him.
The “average Brazilian” likes hierarchy, loves authority and the patriarchal family, condemns homosexuality, sees women, blacks and Indians as inferior and less capable, is disgusted with the poor, although he is unable to realize that he is as poor as those who condemn. He sees the poverty and unemployment of others as lacking in moral fiber, but he perceives his own misery and lack of money as others' fault and lack of opportunity. He demands from the government all kinds of benefits that the law assures him, but he finds it absurd when others, especially the poorest, have the same benefit.
Few times in our history have the Brazilian people been so well represented by their rulers. That is why it is not enough to ask how it is possible for a President of the Republic to be so unworthy of the position and still maintain the unconditional support of a third of the population. The question to be answered is how millions of Brazilians keep alive such high standards of mediocrity, intolerance, prejudice and lack of critical sense to the point of feeling represented by such a government?”
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Ivan Lago
Professor and PhD in Political Sociology
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