Lula must recalibrate Lula and talk less about Bolsonaro – 03/23/2024 – Celso Rocha de Barros

The government’s popularity fell. Friday’s Datafolha showed that Lula’s approval (35%) is more or less tied with his rejection (33%). It’s not a bad result, but it’s gotten worse since last year.

Many people rushed to blame the government’s communications department, especially Minister Paulo Pimenta. There is no doubt that there is room for improvement. But the work of the Communication Secretariat is only a small part of government communication.

It is Lula who does most of the work. When he speaks, it is the government speaking. We demand explanations from him when something goes wrong. Therefore, the person who has the most room for maneuver to improve government communication is the president himself.

Firstly, Lula should talk less about Bolsonaro. Leave Jair to the police, Lula. You were elected by the poor because Bolsonaro, in four years, only gave them fights on Twitter and a coup d’état.

You promised them a government. That’s what you should talk to Brazil about: about your government.

After all, you have good news to share. For example, on March 9th, the Sheet published the results of a study by Marcos Hecksher, from Ipea. The study showed that labor income rose 11.7% in 2023, the biggest increase since the Real Plan. In the same article, economist Marcelo Neri, from Fundação Getulio Vargas, said that Brazilian per capita household income rose 12.5% ​​last year.

These are excellent results, the result of the increase in spending on the poor: the minimum wage had a real increase again (which did not happen during the Bolsonaro era), Bolsa Família was boosted.

When Brazilians hear Lula speaking on TV or on the networks, they should be hearing him talk more about things like this, and less about Jair.

Secondly, Lula has to recalibrate his foreign policy interventions.

I know people in the PT who admit that Lula was wrong to compare the bombing of Gaza to the Holocaust. They even regret that this took the focus away from their government’s position on the conflict in the Middle East, which is good. The decision to donate money to the agency that supports Palestinian refugees, in particular, greatly honored Brazilian diplomacy. But in the end, if the discussion about the government is “what was the Holocaust?”, the opposition won the round.

Finally, Lula should speak directly to evangelicals. The president has resisted doing so. He thinks that if he manages to raise the living standards of the poor, he will automatically win over evangelicals, who are, for the most part, poor.

There is a lot of truth in this, but you have to be careful with “automatically”. If evangelicals continue to be isolated in the Bolsonarist disinformation bubble, the same increase in the price of beans could trigger rejection of Lula faster among them than among the rest of the population.

The Brazilian public debate is much more hostile than in previous Lula governments. Polarization imposes a ceiling on both sides. When Lula had 70% popularity, it was because many right-wing people supported him. After Bolsonarism, this became much more difficult. Care must be taken not to waste popularity.

Lula does not have the power to calibrate the world economy, El Niño, nor many other factors that influence his popularity. But Lula can calibrate Lula.

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