Brazilian presidential and general elections 2022 (1st round: October 2nd, 2nd round: October 30th)

[Red Velvet]

Lula AND Bolsonaro’s performances in BOTH the 1st round and the runoff got in the top 10 ranking of highest number of votes of all time. Which makes 40% of the ranking be just composed by the 2022 election lol

Top 10 largest votings in Brazilian elections:

1. Lula (PT) - 60.345.999 - 2022 runoff (won)
2. Lula (PT) - 58.295.042 - 2006 runoff (won)
3. Jair Bolsonaro (PL) - 58.206.354 - 2022 runoff (lost)
4. Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) - 57.797.847 - 2018 runoff (won)
5. Lula (PT) - 57.259.504 - 2022 1st round (went to runoff)
6. Dilma Rousseff (PT) - 55.752.529 - 2010 runoff (won)
7. Dilma Rousseff (PT) - 54.501.118 - 2014 runoff (won)
8. Lula (PT) - 52.793.364 - 2002 runoff (won)
9. Jair Bolsonaro (PL) - 51.072.345 - 2022 1st round (went to runoff)
10. Aécio Neves (PSDB) - 51.041.155 - 2014 runoff (lost)

2/10 are 1st round votes - both from this 2022 cycle! Shows how high the vote was but also how more concentrated it was in the top 2 candidates too.

2/10 are failed campaigns that lost runoff after a close vote (Aécio 2014 + Bolsonaro 2022).

And the other 6/10 are every winning runoff campaign from this century - 5 PT victories (3 from Lula, 2 from Dilma) + Bolsonaro 2018 as well.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Seeing a lot of comments from people from USA/Europe here, I'm not surprised why the working class in these countries has come to vote for the right/far right. The left in these countries has become a party of educated rich from downtown and Woke culture. I would always prefer a party that looks more at the poorest and most marginalized.

Is it fair to say that Latin America's marked by a certain kind of "class solidarity" that you don't see in large sections of US and Europe?

If much of the working class in Europe/USA is voting for the far right because they feel betrayed or forgotten by the left, then it is also class solidarity.

I was referring to significant vote differentials between rich and poor. Class solidarity doesn't just mean working class people voting more in common with each other, it can also mean things like the (relatively) rich banding together to vote for a specific right-wing candidate (see: Bolsonaro against Haddad in 2018).

[RicardoCampos]

Seeing a lot of comments from people from USA/Europe here, I'm not surprised why the working class in these countries has come to vote for the right/far right. The left in these countries has become a party of educated rich from downtown and Woke culture. I would always prefer a party that looks more at the poorest and most marginalized.

Is it fair to say that Latin America's marked by a certain kind of "class solidarity" that you don't see in large sections of US and Europe?

If much of the working class in Europe/USA is voting for the far right because they feel betrayed or forgotten by the left, then it is also class solidarity.

I was referring to significant vote differentials between rich and poor. Class solidarity doesn't just mean working class people voting more in common with each other, it can also mean things like the (relatively) rich banding together to vote for a specific right-wing candidate (see: Bolsonaro against Haddad in 2018).

In this case, we can understand that these educated rich from downtowns of the great centers of the 1st world vote in class in these self-styled "left" parties.
It is an inverse logic because the political parties themselves have reversed their government programs.

[adma]

Seeing a lot of comments from people from USA/Europe here, I'm not surprised why the working class in these countries has come to vote for the right/far right. The left in these countries has become a party of educated rich from downtown and Woke culture. I would always prefer a party that looks more at the poorest and most marginalized.

"Looking more at" is one thing; "aiding, abetting, and pandering to basest instincts" is another.

Particularly in the USA, where "poorest and most marginalized" has come to denote not income or class level, but, shall we say, "taste values".  That is, "poor" not in the sense of no money, but "poor" in the sense of identifying with Trump's vulgarian/dictator-chic taste.  Or as Fran Lebowitz observed, Trump is a poor person's idea of a rich person.  He appeals to the McMansion class--those who either live in McMansions, or hope to live in one once they achieve "prosperity".  IOW rather than money buying taste, money buying the right to set one's own parameters of "taste", and if you don't like it, so there, nyaaah.

In a way, that's a class that's been glossed over, sneered at and rationalized to the margins for *decades*, particularly during the Cold War years when America and the West at large chose to project an "enlightened middle" aspirational self-image.  Today, the right-populists would paint that "enlightened middle" notion as some kind of "globalist plot"...

[buritobr]

Swing map of municipalities from the runoff 2018 to the runoff 2022



Trend map of municipalities from the runoff 2018 to the runoff 2022

[Red Velvet]

What’s the difference between swing and trend?

[Sestak]

What’s the difference between swing and trend?

The former is absolute difference, the latter is relative to the respective national results.

[RicardoCampos]

Seeing a lot of comments from people from USA/Europe here, I'm not surprised why the working class in these countries has come to vote for the right/far right. The left in these countries has become a party of educated rich from downtown and Woke culture. I would always prefer a party that looks more at the poorest and most marginalized.

"Looking more at" is one thing; "aiding, abetting, and pandering to basest instincts" is another.

Particularly in the USA, where "poorest and most marginalized" has come to denote not income or class level, but, shall we say, "taste values".  That is, "poor" not in the sense of no money, but "poor" in the sense of identifying with Trump's vulgarian/dictator-chic taste.  Or as Fran Lebowitz observed, Trump is a poor person's idea of a rich person.  He appeals to the McMansion class--those who either live in McMansions, or hope to live in one once they achieve "prosperity".  IOW rather than money buying taste, money buying the right to set one's own parameters of "taste", and if you don't like it, so there, nyaaah.

In a way, that's a class that's been glossed over, sneered at and rationalized to the margins for *decades*, particularly during the Cold War years when America and the West at large chose to project an "enlightened middle" aspirational self-image.  Today, the right-populists would paint that "enlightened middle" notion as some kind of "globalist plot"...

The problem is that there is no way to dissociate the money poor from the customs poor, considering that people with less education are generally poorer. Added to this is that, by the accounts of people here on the forum, rural American areas are far more marginalized in structural and cultural terms than metropolitan areas. As a result, the American working class and peasants are Trumpists, I wonder what Marx would say about that. How about the republican party replacing its symbols with the hammer and sickle?

This is the fault of the democratic party itself (and European socialist parties?). More and more I wonder if this elitization of left-wing parties is a lobby of intelligence agencies that want to end a left that opposes capitalism, imperialism and neo-liberalism. I'm not even talking about the left being communist. Social democracy seems to be becoming a thing of the past.

[RicardoCampos]

Returning to the subject of Brazil, so as not to get too far off topic. I think the left here follows the same path. Lula is the last bastion of the "deep left". The "new left" is copying the US/Europe model and its new leaderships are all like that.

However, as Brazilian demography is different, the result will be a massive loss of votes, as the majority of the Brazilian population is poor and does not have higher education. The right does not seem to have any desire to improve the educational level of Brazilians and the left without votes.

[adma]

The problem is that there is no way to dissociate the money poor from the customs poor, considering that people with less education are generally poorer. Added to this is that, by the accounts of people here on the forum, rural American areas are far more marginalized in structural and cultural terms than metropolitan areas. As a result, the American working class and peasants are Trumpists, I wonder what Marx would say about that. How about the republican party replacing its symbols with the hammer and sickle?

This is the fault of the democratic party itself (and European socialist parties?). More and more I wonder if this elitization of left-wing parties is a lobby of intelligence agencies that want to end a left that opposes capitalism, imperialism and neo-liberalism. I'm not even talking about the left being communist. Social democracy seems to be becoming a thing of the past.

Well, actually, speaking in particular of the American context, there *can* be a way of such dissociation--that is, when Hillary Clinton spoke of "deplorables", she certainly wasn't speaking of the POC underclass which the Dems already had in the bag.  And in a way, we're not even talking about "less education" so much as an outright disdain for "edjucayshun", which even pertains to the self-styled money-rich.  And where even the term "metropolitan" can be construed as a euphemism for pointy-headed elites.

However, one might say that present-day GOP strategy is indeed to chip away at the POC-underclass monolith by pandering to the "customs poor".  (And in terms of Canada, Rob & Doug Ford in Toronto were/are definitely exemplars of pitching to the multicultural big-tent "money/customs-poor": suburban ethnoburbans and the like, those who are at least as remote from the downtown chattering class as rural rednecks)

[adma]

Another way of looking at it: in the States, "elevating the poor" has largely been a tributary of some form or another of affirmative action over the years.  Thus it's been, shall we say, the "desirable" realm of the cultural rainbow that's been the biggest beneficiary--there's a reason why, in 1969, Sesame Street was given an inner-city setting, at a time when "inner city" increasingly connoted "nonwhite".  And it's also why those present-day Republican-swingers are the de facto successors to the "Silent Majority", i.e. those who would have had a problem with that Sesame Street inner-city cultural skew.  "Why were *those* poor being elevated, and not *us*?" is how the narrative might have gone...

[CumbrianLefty]

Social democracy seems to be becoming a thing of the past.

A comment that maybe had more force 10-15 years ago.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Seeing a lot of comments from people from USA/Europe here, I'm not surprised why the working class in these countries has come to vote for the right/far right. The left in these countries has become a party of educated rich from downtown and Woke culture. I would always prefer a party that looks more at the poorest and most marginalized.

That's not even exactly accurate in the United States (the poorest sections of the electorate still largely vote for the Democratic Party, the principal issue is a little further up: of course this is due to the racialized nature of socio-economic divisions in the USA and there is no longer the same level of relatively uniformity amongst the voting habits of poor people that existed as recently as a decade and a half ago) and is very much not accurate elsewhere.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is it fair to say that Latin America's marked by a certain kind of "class solidarity" that you don't see in large sections of US and Europe?

The 2018 election in Brazil would heavily suggest not. The big swing towards Lula in industrial areas in the south of the country was critical to getting him over the line and has (wrongly) been missed by some commentators who are keener to discuss other dramatic movement, but there's a reason why 'a big swing' was required.

[Red Velvet]

Nova Pádua (RS), an Italian immigrant reduct in the South, was the city that gave Bolsonaro his highest results in the country with 88,99% of the vote there. But it still swinged left somewhat significantly in comparison to 2018, when that same city voted 92,96% for Bolsonaro against Haddad.

Meanwhile, Guaribas (PI), located in the interior of the Northeast and the city that’s marked by being where Lula’s program to eradicate hunger in the 00s (“Fome Zero”) was first implemented, was the municipality that gave Lula his best results, with 93,86% voting for Lula there.

[buritobr]

Nova Pádua (RS), an Italian immigrant reduct in the South, was the city that gave Bolsonaro his highest results in the country with 88,99% of the vote there. But it still swinged left somewhat significantly in comparison to 2018, when that same city voted 92,96% for Bolsonaro against Haddad.

Meanwhile, Guaribas (PI), located in the interior of the Northeast and the city that’s marked by being where Lula’s program to eradicate hunger in the 00s (“Fome Zero”) was first implemented, was the municipality that gave Lula his best results, with 93,86% voting for Lula there.

Yes, there was a decrease in the geographic polarization in Brazil in 2022, including the 2 extreme cities. Most of the most pro-PT municipalities in 2018 had a pro-Bolsonaro swing in 2022 and most of the most pro-Bolsonaro municipalities in 2018 had a pro-PT swing in 2022.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Returning to the subject of Brazil, so as not to get too far off topic. I think the left here follows the same path. Lula is the last bastion of the "deep left". The "new left" is copying the US/Europe model and its new leaderships are all like that.

However, as Brazilian demography is different, the result will be a massive loss of votes, as the majority of the Brazilian population is poor and does not have higher education. The right does not seem to have any desire to improve the educational level of Brazilians and the left without votes.

Which for me always raises the question: why? Why does the left in country after country keep doing this? What on earth makes left-wingers in places like Brazil think that it's a model that will succeed there when it's toxic even in the societies for which it was designed?

[parochial boy]

Returning to the subject of Brazil, so as not to get too far off topic. I think the left here follows the same path. Lula is the last bastion of the "deep left". The "new left" is copying the US/Europe model and its new leaderships are all like that.

However, as Brazilian demography is different, the result will be a massive loss of votes, as the majority of the Brazilian population is poor and does not have higher education. The right does not seem to have any desire to improve the educational level of Brazilians and the left without votes.

Which for me always raises the question: why? Why does the left in country after country keep doing this? What on earth makes left-wingers in places like Brazil think that it's a model that will succeed there when it's toxic even in the societies for which it was designed?

Diverting somewhat from the topic of Brazil here, I don't think it is exactly intentional on the whole, or in most places.

A recent bit of analysis came out here essentially looking at what the Socialists do - the legislation they bring into parliament, the referendums they launch, what they campaign on, in practice. Almost without exception, it is traditional left wing fare: minimum wages, more funding for the welfare state and public services, higher taxes on the rich and on and on. And like everywhere, they are constantly met with the accusation of only being interested in the "woke" perferences of the educated middle class.

So why is this? Well the - especially right wing - media narrative puts all the focus on those issues. Constantly bringing up the most marginal and irrelevant stories. The right wing parties also only talk about this, precisely because they know the core of their own ideology has simply run out of intellectual ground in light of its recurrent failures. So the left, because it is still fundamentally the left, is forced onto the back foot and into defending anti-racism, LGBT rights or even things as basic as the institutions of liberal democracy. Because it is morally the right thing to do. But this also then merely serves to fuel the accusation that they are only interested in the preferences of the culturally liberal educated classes.

And this is what happens in country after country.

It's Gramscian really, but then at the same time, people aren't going to be dupe forever. There's only such much you can yell about a white guy with dreadlocks getting thrown out of a bar before people realise that their material living conditions continuing decline is maybe a little bit more important, and that on that issue, the conservatives have nothing to offer.

[Red Velvet]

Returning to the subject of Brazil, so as not to get too far off topic. I think the left here follows the same path. Lula is the last bastion of the "deep left". The "new left" is copying the US/Europe model and its new leaderships are all like that.

However, as Brazilian demography is different, the result will be a massive loss of votes, as the majority of the Brazilian population is poor and does not have higher education. The right does not seem to have any desire to improve the educational level of Brazilians and the left without votes.

Which for me always raises the question: why? Why does the left in country after country keep doing this? What on earth makes left-wingers in places like Brazil think that it's a model that will succeed there when it's toxic even in the societies for which it was designed?

The “left” isn’t one single entity that makes conscious decisions.

It just happens that Brazil uses social media A LOT - the place where these discussions happen more often - making political discussions be more influenced by it.

That doesn’t mean all the left is reduced to this. Lula’s margins in Northeast interior and the lack of a urban/rural divide that you see in the West are proof of this.

However, the trend for the future with the internet is this, unfortunately. Social media canalizes the need for attention and recognition and that naturally emboldens identity politics that categorizes and divide people into different identity groups. It stimulates confrontations, which is the fuel for social media interactions.

Basically politics are becoming more this entertainment circus that people use to distract themselves, using these token moral issue for performative online activism. That goes not just for the “woke left” but to the religious right as well, it’s a broader phenomenon.

Unfortunately, the backlash against wokeness is basically driven by outright racist and fascist people - which reinforces the polarization idea. Until there’s a serious backlash with real intelectual arguments coming from the left itself against political correctness and these other topics, the trend is for the camp to become more like this insufferable academic bubble yeah

Anti-woke left - one that feels comfortable with the idea of disrespecting symbolisms and transgressing empty morality more often - needs to be empowered into the mainstream but that’s just complicated to do when the right appropriated the idea of “transgression” and incorporated it to their own ideals.

Armed Progressives of the 60s/70s during the dictatorship >>>>> Progressives of nowadays who would never pick up on guns against authoritarianism, tweeting their outrage is enough.

Back then the left WAS the transgressive force defending that there shouldn’t be rules guiding people’s lives. Nowadays these people are too weak to take one comment that is not that morally enlightened as something not problematic.m

And that’s the issue. You can’t deny the right gets to be the “Cool ones” nowadays even though what they defend is disgusting. The left nowadays has a giant communication and rhetoric problem because of their commitment to the political correct.

If the left instead of shaping their discourse to simply oppose the right, focused on creating new narratives themselves that most people care about, a lot of this wouldn’t even matter tbh.

[Vosem]

Returning to the subject of Brazil, so as not to get too far off topic. I think the left here follows the same path. Lula is the last bastion of the "deep left". The "new left" is copying the US/Europe model and its new leaderships are all like that.

However, as Brazilian demography is different, the result will be a massive loss of votes, as the majority of the Brazilian population is poor and does not have higher education. The right does not seem to have any desire to improve the educational level of Brazilians and the left without votes.

Which for me always raises the question: why? Why does the left in country after country keep doing this? What on earth makes left-wingers in places like Brazil think that it's a model that will succeed there when it's toxic even in the societies for which it was designed?

I don't think the left or the right is deliberately designed in any country; ideas spread when people sincerely believe them. (There are many explanations out there for why "new left" ideas might be spreading, but all of these explanations have to start out by recognizing that these ideas are in fact convincing to lots and lots of people).

The Brazilian left (and the American left, and the American right, and so on and so forth) is not capable of contorting itself to the best shape to check the Brazilian right; people within it are actually sincerely motivated by the ideas they hold.

[buritobr]

According to the ongoing meetings in order to build the cabinet, Lula's new administration will look like Olaf Scholz's administration.
His former president of the Central Bank Henrique Meirelles, who has liberal views in economics (not in the American meaning of the word) will probably become part of the economic team. Economists Pérsio Arida and André Lara Resende will participate in the transition team. These economists used to be academic mates. Arida has liberal views (not in the American meaning). Lara Resende used to have liberal views, but now he is an enthusiast of the MMT.
Marina Silva and Randolfe Rodriguez, who are activists in the cause of the environment, will probably become part of the cabinet.

Henrique Meirelles can be compared to Christian Lindner. Marina Silva can be compared to Annalena Baerbock.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Returning to the subject of Brazil, so as not to get too far off topic. I think the left here follows the same path. Lula is the last bastion of the "deep left". The "new left" is copying the US/Europe model and its new leaderships are all like that.

However, as Brazilian demography is different, the result will be a massive loss of votes, as the majority of the Brazilian population is poor and does not have higher education. The right does not seem to have any desire to improve the educational level of Brazilians and the left without votes.

Which for me always raises the question: why? Why does the left in country after country keep doing this? What on earth makes left-wingers in places like Brazil think that it's a model that will succeed there when it's toxic even in the societies for which it was designed?

The “left” isn’t one single entity that makes conscious decisions.

Of course it isn't, but there's still such a thing as a mass or collective will that be discussed and deferred to at least heuristically. If there weren't then there would be no point to democracy to begin with.

The thing about identity politics is that class/socioeconomic status/whatever you want to call it is itself an identity category and an awful lot of successful class-based politicking looks very much like politicking based on other types of identity groups, just with the particulars switched around (Lula literally telling people, correctly imo, that Bolsonaro didn't believe in their right to grill, for instance--Biden would throw out similar red meat in his two campaigns as Obama's running mate, but usually on the level of race, which is part of how he had so much credibility with black voters going into the 2020 primaries. People made fun of "they'll put y'all back in chains" when he said it at a rally in 2012, but it did seem to actually, you know, work). So a more precise question that my exasperation can be Brisker-methoded down to might be "why on earth is how much money someone has and whether or not they're able to afford a comfortable way of life becoming so much less salient as a form of identity politics even in extremely unequal and stratified parts of the world?"

You're correct to point out that the right is even more responsible for forcing the newer sets of "issues" down everyone's throat, though, and I would never intentionally suggest otherwise.

I don't think the left or the right is deliberately designed in any country; ideas spread when people sincerely believe them. (There are many explanations out there for why "new left" ideas might be spreading, but all of these explanations have to start out by recognizing that these ideas are in fact convincing to lots and lots of people).

The Brazilian left (and the American left, and the American right, and so on and so forth) is not capable of contorting itself to the best shape to check the Brazilian right; people within it are actually sincerely motivated by the ideas they hold.

I understand that, but you'd think the repeated failure of a certain type of idea to improve people's lives would eventually start to put new people off adopting it. Say what you will--and what I have!--of the Reagan-Clinton-Greenspan joyride of the late 1980s through mid-2000s, at least it meant that lots and lots of people my age and a little older had nice big fancy homes to grow up in.

[Vosem]

I don't think the left or the right is deliberately designed in any country; ideas spread when people sincerely believe them. (There are many explanations out there for why "new left" ideas might be spreading, but all of these explanations have to start out by recognizing that these ideas are in fact convincing to lots and lots of people).

The Brazilian left (and the American left, and the American right, and so on and so forth) is not capable of contorting itself to the best shape to check the Brazilian right; people within it are actually sincerely motivated by the ideas they hold.

I understand that, but you'd think the repeated failure of a certain type of idea to improve people's lives would eventually start to put new people off adopting it. Say what you will--and what I have!--of the Reagan-Clinton-Greenspan joyride of the late 1980s through mid-2000s, at least it meant that lots and lots of people my age and a little older had nice big fancy homes to grow up in.

I would think one of the things that the two of us would agree on is that ideas with very poor track records of improving peoples' lives keep being stubbornly believed in! Convincingness seems only very vaguely correlated with effectiveness, though I actually do think it's been getting more correlated over time since the Industrial Revolution. Actually -- although very slowly -- I think people do learn from history.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I don't think the left or the right is deliberately designed in any country; ideas spread when people sincerely believe them. (There are many explanations out there for why "new left" ideas might be spreading, but all of these explanations have to start out by recognizing that these ideas are in fact convincing to lots and lots of people).

The Brazilian left (and the American left, and the American right, and so on and so forth) is not capable of contorting itself to the best shape to check the Brazilian right; people within it are actually sincerely motivated by the ideas they hold.

I understand that, but you'd think the repeated failure of a certain type of idea to improve people's lives would eventually start to put new people off adopting it. Say what you will--and what I have!--of the Reagan-Clinton-Greenspan joyride of the late 1980s through mid-2000s, at least it meant that lots and lots of people my age and a little older had nice big fancy homes to grow up in.

I would think one of the things that the two of us would agree on is that ideas with very poor track records of improving peoples' lives keep being stubbornly believed in! Convincingness seems only very vaguely correlated with effectiveness, though I actually do think it's been getting more correlated over time since the Industrial Revolution. Actually -- although very slowly -- I think people do learn from history.

Fair enough. There's no surprise there, as Don Blankenship would say.

[Red Velvet]

So a more precise question that my exasperation can be Brisker-methoded down to might be "why on earth is how much money someone has and whether or not they're able to afford a comfortable way of life becoming so much less salient as a form of identity politics even in extremely unequal and stratified parts of the world?"

It’s not less salient though, at least not in Brazil. Just look at how the Northeast interior votes, with heavy margins for Lula.

I wouldn’t call these Northeast votes “progressive” at all. Many are very socially conservative. But because of their economic position, they’re still a PT stronghold. As I pointed, the city where Lula got his highest margins is the one he started his program to eradicate hunger two freaking decades ago. These people have economic memory.

At most this “trend” with the big urban center capital favoring the left is more of a small thing in the richer South/Southeast but even then nothing way too significant to the levels of what you see in the West.

What we’re talking in Brazil when we bring this dumb woke stuff is a trend for the future as the Global South gets increasingly richer while the West stagnates. In the meanwhile, social media occupies more of a protagonist space in discussions and it’s turned to social issues in order to brainwash people to fall into the right-wingers trap.

Populism (by definition, what’s more popular) consists of economic leftism + social conservatism. But ESPECIALLY in a country like Brazil (In Europe you could argue social progressivism isn’t as unpopular; in USA you could say economic rightism isn’t as unpopular), so the center of discussions should be adjusted as such.

Majority of population just hates the right economic positions but they’re able to pass it in the background if they get elected based on social issues fearmongering. People voted for Bolsonaro based on cultural association and evil politicians and media people acted like it was validation or backing to his economic program when it never was. If anything a figure like Paulo Guedes helped Bozo lose re-election. It’s on the interest of the right to center the discussion on this cultural and social issues nonsense and force the left into a reactive loser attitude where they just try to contain whatever the right comes up from their asses.

A bold populist economic agenda plan is clearly the medicine for that. But it’s not enough to simply stand for and do that stuff, it needs to be main focus of people’s conversations. People need to be passionate about it enough to make it their main propaganda. Communication and the selling of ideas is everything.

And a lot of that goes through embracing social conservatives who agree with you economically. The problem is making people way too passionate about cultural stuff on the left accept that.

If a figure like Bolsonaro were to drop elitist Faria Lima types, the right would just be invincible and the left would be screwed for the long term. Look at the Orban model in Hungary. He managed to get such a strong hold in power through the vote BECAUSE he adopted some economic populism measures to go along with his hard social conservatism.

Bolsonaro was right in his earlier and more primitive political instincts (ex: against selling of strategic companies to private sector) but luckily he had to change in order to please the economic liberals and business types who joined him to defeat the PT. They were also the first to jump ship and be not-loyal to the president, so it’s a good thing if Bolsonarism keeps trying to cater to these psychopaths instead of broadening their populist reach inside the population.

Bolsonaro only adopted hard economic populism in the final three months of his campaign, to the point of electoral abuse even. And we saw how much he grew in the polls because of that, becoming much more competitive than anyone expected. Just imagine if he acted like that since the beginning of his government??? The left would have no chances and this country would’ve been Hungary already.

Hope that becomes a lesson for the left on what they need to focus in order to have more success in the future. Mainly for Brazil, but not really just for us.