Bolsonarism grew in the wake of a perverse triad – 04/17/2023 – Politics

There are many ways to explain Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) victory in the 2018 election. That of political scientist Carlos Henrique Santana involves what he calls a “perverse triad”: three major trends that fed each other and produced effects contrary to expectations.

The triad is made up of Lava Jato, the growth of the evangelical population and social networks. “In general, these three elements would bring with them positive assumptions for the transformation of public affairs”, says Santana.

However, he says, these expectations were frustrated and, worse, brought deleterious results.

“The combination of these three factors produced an institutional near-collapse that led the average Brazilian voter to distrust not only the traditional parties, including the PT, but also to distrust democracy itself.”

In academic research, Santana analyzed 29 variables in the 2018 election, noting which ones favored each candidate.

According to him, who carried out the study in partnership with economist Marcela Nogueira Ferrario, the data indicate that Bolsonaro’s voting middle class was deceived. “She adhered to anti-partisanship and anti-PTism against her own interests.”

Even so, in Santana’s view, if the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) is not successful, a new opportunity opens up for Bolsonaro’s group.

“If there is no such answer [aos problemas da população], in the medium term, it is very difficult for this extreme right, which is well organized, not to return. It’s pretty hard for her not to come back.”

Bolsonaro’s trip to the United States opened space for discussions about who will lead the opposition to the Lula government. In his assessment, are the votes received by Bolsonaro a legacy in dispute or are they the former president’s personal political capital? Bolsonaro’s political action has a very particular characteristic, which is the charismatic adherence to him and his family members. Much of his strength comes from there. And part of its strength also stems from how it operates through its relationships with evangelical voters and on social media. This gives Bolsonaro an important advantage over the other actors.

In a scenario where he is declared ineligible by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), can he transfer this political capital to someone else? We still haven’t seen Bolsonaro or his family acting as electoral cables. But, if we look at the politicians benefited in the last elections with his and his family’s support, his ability to transfer political capital is clear.

In an article presented at Anpocs [Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais] Last year, you claim that the rejection of the PT was one of the main factors behind Bolsonaro’s coming to power in the 2018 election. How did anti-PTism become so relevant to the rise of Bolsonarism? In the period leading up to the 2018 election, we experienced a political upheaval motivated mainly by what I called the perverse triad: investigations into corruption; the religious demographic transition, with the increase of the evangelical population; and the growing importance of social networks.

There are three major trends that occurred simultaneously and fed each other. And why perverse triad? Because in general these three elements would bring with them positive assumptions for the transformation of public affairs: consolidation of control over corruption, greater political participation through social networks and a diffuse idea that the evangelical voter would tend to a more responsible vision in relation to your own life.

And we noticed that these hypotheses were not only frustrated, but actually had opposite effects. Lava Jato, for example, resulted in enormous institutional degradation, while the investigation system itself proved to be fragile, not to say that it brought elements that were themselves corrupt in terms of procedural mechanisms.

Political participation through social networks, in turn, has revealed a rather controversial trend, difficult to sustain if we want to think about constructive participation in terms of democracy, citizenship. And the action of the evangelical churches also proved to be predatory from the parliamentary point of view and from their role in the political sphere.

The combination of these three factors produced an institutional quasi-collapse that led the average Brazilian voter to distrust not only the traditional parties, including the PT, but also to distrust democracy itself, the rule of law, institutions, what was and is very dangerous.

How much has this scenario changed compared to 2018? From the point of view of the justice system, there is no longer the weight that Lava Jato had, and I cannot see something similar happening again. Apparently, there was a course correction within the Judiciary.

With regard to evangelicals, we have a different configuration. These groups maintained an important position in Congress, and there is a relationship between them and extreme right-wing networks inside and outside Brazil. But the more radical agenda, which was mobilized against the idea of ​​a secular state, tends to weaken because of the new government. Now, depending on the fragility of Lula’s base in Parliament, the bargaining power of these religious benches, mainly evangelical ones, should be maintained.

As for social networks, there has been a change that goes through traditional media companies, which have perceived a threat. If before Bolsonaro was still, by the press, perceived ambiguously –that is, it was believed that something could be consolidated from the point of view of an institutionality—, later it was realized that he did not have a minimally civilized vision .

Then the press began to play a more supervisory, more critical role. This diminished the ability of social networks, especially those dominated by the extreme right, to exclusively guide the dynamics of electoral behavior. But this situation is not resolved, because Bolsonarist networks are still able to oppose a framing of public opinion in certain events.

In the article, you also claim that traditional explanations of voter behavior were challenged by the Bolsonaro vote in 2018. Why? The literature on voting behavior has a hypothesis about the so-called inertial voter. It is, basically, that voter who does not make choices based on ideological, programmatic rationality. It is a voter who negotiates his support in the short term. And, in general, the literature that points to this dynamic attributes to the poor voter the tendency to have an inertial behavior.

Our work, however, brings elements that show that this poorer reader, with less schooling, has a more rational behavior. That is, he has an ideological vote, in the sense of understanding his strategic interests not only in the short term, but also in the long term.

On the other hand, the middle class, the social strata with more education and income, these proved to be inertial.

In what sense? As people reach a certain level of schooling, they begin to develop concerns about the rule of law and democracy. If people want to get jobs and prosper, you first need to have an institutional and economic order that allows for this kind of development.

And Bolsonaro has an extraordinary quality: he is not oblique, he does not pretend anything. Not only does he say what he thinks, taking a stand against the rule of law, he had an economic policy that ran counter to public policies that benefited the middle class.

The bulk of public resources in long-term policies before Bolsonaro went through financing systems that mainly benefited the middle class. They are real estate or car financing programs, scholarships to access university, credit policies for the agricultural sector, BNDES disbursements, etc.

So the middle class was deluded. It behaved inertially, because it adhered to anti-partisanship and anti-PTism against its own interests.

How did you come to that conclusion? We used aggregated data by municipality, covering all Brazilian cities, and analyzed the proportion of votes according to 29 variables, distributed in percentiles. And the entire microdata base we use is accessible. That is, they are available at the corresponding institutions, which are public, reputable institutions.

With this, we were able to compare each of these variables in a more solid way. We discovered some surprising things. For example, in our tests, violence was not significant in explaining voting for Bolsonaro. If we look closely, the capitals with the highest homicide rates are in the Northeast, a region that votes massively for the PT.

We were also able to perceive that, even with the expansion of the higher education system, with growing enrollments, even with the expansion of the credit offer, the voter benefited by these policies did not necessarily vote for the candidate associated with them. So there was no identification of this middle class with policies that met their interests.

However, in relation to the most fragile groups, those who effectively need protection policies, there we find a significant dimension in relation to the voter’s identity.

That is, on balance, Bolsonarist voters responded to some typical characteristics of the so-called moral indignation. He lived up to that expectation about a conservative moralist vote. And Fernando Haddad’s voters responded to this dimension of social protection, so to speak.

Given that Bolsonaro managed to place himself as an important vector of anti-PTism, what does a possible third way need to do to have a viable name in the next presidential race? There is a part of the possible answers to this question that depends on a type of political mobilization that, in general, people who present themselves as a third way do not want to do. The third way is always presented in a kind of elegant guise, but without a specific agenda for problems that are urgent within society, which is the problem of inequality and the serious social problems that affect the country.

Now, there is something else that concerns not only the third way, but the Lula government itself. If Lula and the PT want to maintain their position of advantage in the next elections, the government will have to make a mobilization effort. It’s a difficult word to use, it’s controversial, but it’s going to have to have a populist inflection.

What does that mean? You will have to explore specific affections of the Brazilian population and understand that, in dramatic conditions of unemployment, crisis, etc., this discourse that mobilizes has a positive role.

Of course, the government needs to find a compromise to ensure stability. But, if the country does not return to growth, if the government does not manage to have a long-term strategy and becomes hostage to a superconservative Congress, the political capital could end up being all consumed within the State machine, in the relations between the Powers.

While the extreme right manages to move in the social sphere through instruments such as social networks, the other parties seek to return to institutionality, but, at the same time, do not offer effective answers to urgent dilemmas. If there is no such response, in the medium term, it is very difficult for this extreme right, which is well organized, not to return. It’s pretty hard for her not to come back.

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RAIO-X – Carlos Henrique Santana, 44

Political scientist, with a doctorate from Iesp (Institute of Social and Political Studies of the State University of Rio de Janeiro, successor to Iuperj), he is professor of economics at Unila (Federal University of Latin American Integration).