Post-truth in action: Brazil under Bolsonaro

by Gabriel Fernandes
Committee on U.S.-Latin American Relations (CUSLAR)

The 2018 elections in Brazil have come to show that ideological narratives outweigh facts when applied to a context of right-wing populism.

Brazil is a country of extreme inequality and a relatively recent history of dictatorship. So why did 55 percent of Brazilian voters choose Jair Bolsonaro, who is in the words of Harvard University political scientist Scott Mainwaring the “most extreme leader in the history of democratic elections in Latin America”? Understanding his victory means taking seriously an ideological clash that spoke directly to the hearts of Brazilians voters. In other words, Brazil voted for its new president on the basis of sentiment and how well the ultra-right responded to feelings of indignation and mistrust towards the political class that so-rightfully brewed out of all social and economic classes in the country.

The new Bolsonaro presidency brings attention to a social process that is intrinsic to this new digital era: the articulation of Post-Truth – the revelativization of facts in the face of multiple discourses simultaneously presented as truthful – as a political tool. The ideological campaign of Bolsonaro would not be successful without the widespread use of ‘fake news’ that were being sent through the internet and WhatsApp.

To understand how this ordinary former congressman ignited his career to the presidency of the fifth largest country in the world on the basis of ultra-conservative thought, dictatorship prasing, and fake news, please consider accessing the following links online:

Danush Parvaneh, “Why this far-right candidate won Brazil’s election”. This video offers precise information about the socio-political circumstances that led to the rise of the far-Right in Brazil. It provides data about the economy, street violence, and corruption – specially the ‘Car Wash’ Operation and how it was used to demonize the PT and the figure of Lula.

Rodrigo Nunes, “Centrists paved the way for the far right in Brazil”. Nunes is lecturer at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and writes convincingly about how the same forces behind the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 opened precedent to allow ultra-conservative movements to superseed both Center-Left and Center-Right parties in 2018: “To understand Jair Bolsonaro’s rise, we need to look at centrist reckless efforts to exploit institutional meltdown.”

“Did Brazilians Vote Against Democracy On Sunday?”. This article summarizes the quantitative data found by the research panel Brazilian Democracy In the Balance. It analyzes people’s favorable view of the armed forces in midst of the most significant institutional crisis in Brazil’s history. The article raises important questions about who are the voters of Bolsonaro and what lessons they might be forgetting from their country’s recent dictatorial history.

Indeed, truth was bent according the interests of the re-rising Right: as the Workers Party was painted as the most corrupt organization in the country’s history, communism began to be a threat again, alongside with Marxist teaching in schools and homossexual brainwashing. What was truth and nonetheless thoroughly ignored are Bolsonaro’s extreme sexist, racist, and homophobic claims that are yet to be punished.