Brazil swings toward Trumpism

If I told you that a presidential candidate is being roundly criticized for making outrageous statements, is being blamed for violence at his rallies, and is running against someone facing serious charges of corruption, you might think that I am rehashing the 2016 U.S. election.

However, all of the above are features of the just-completed voting in Brazil’s presidential election. Congressman (and former military officer) Jair Bolsonaro fell just short of the 50 percent margin needed to avoid a runoff, and is heavily favored to win the October 28 second round, unless Brazil’s left-leaning parties show a talent for united action that they have failed to show for the past 90 years.

Brazil is providing a real life example of what happens when masses of people lose faith in their democratic leaders. The country is also demonstrating the almost irresistible power of disappointment. If shattered dreams are worse than no dreams at all, few people on Earth have had more dreams shattered, more suddenly, than Brazilians. Just four short years ago, Brazilians reelected President Dilma Rousseff, inaugurating the fourth straight term for the left-leaning Workers Party.

Rousseff was the handpicked successor to President Inácio Lula da Silva, whose eight-year presidency was credited with raising 30 million Brazilians out of poverty and all but eliminating hunger. Also during the Lula years, Brazil discovered massive oil and gas beds just off its coast, promising to propel the South American giant into the ranks of the world’s largest oil exporters. The country’s international recognition as a rising power resulted in the privilege of hosting the World Cup soccer tournament in 2014, and winning the Summer Olympics in 2016. A future of prosperity and respect seemed assured.

Looking back, it seems as though Brazil’s fourth place World Cup finish was an omen of repeated disappointments to come. What started as a small-scale investigation into a suspiciously large number of Brazilian reales passing through a rural money-exchange office soon turned into Operation Car Wash, a massive investigation into money-laundering and other forms of corruption. A separate investigation revealed blatant vote-buying in the Brazil’s Congress. This scandal would lead to the impeachment of President Rousseff, and to prison for the once-heroic President Lula. Even the Olympics turned into a major disappointment.

While many commentators talk about the power of hatred, envy, or fear, disappointment, especially when joined to a sense of being wronged, may be the most powerful emotion of all. Without it, frontrunner Bolsonaro would be nowhere. He has spoken favorably of Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship (a dictatorship that arrested and tortured Dilma Rousseff). He has promised to cut back on Brazil’s extensive social programs. He has also condemned abortion, gaining the near-unanimous support of Brazil’s growing Evangelical Christian community. He is committed to opening oil exploration to foreign investment and even to foreign ownership, which is far more likely to fulfill the promise of wealth for all than the scandalously corrupt Petrobras. (And, he did much of his campaigning from inside a hospital, after he was nearly knifed to death during a rally.)

While all of these promises were important to Bolsonaro’s 46-29 percent victory in the first round, it was his contempt for the ruling elites, his Trump-like promise to “make Brazil great at last” and, most of all, his acknowledgement of Brazilians’ disappointment that really moved the needle his way.

For better or for worse, Trump’s election has spawned imitators, of whom Bolsonaro is only the latest. Politicians who can credibly and successfully appeal to the “forgotten men and women” are going to keep appearing. The early 21st century has seen an exponential rise in the arrogance of ruling classes and an unmasking of their contempt for the people they nominally represent. Bolsonaro invited Brazilians to vent their anger at the professional political class in Brasilia, a capital city whose physical isolation makes it an apt symbol for the cultural isolation of its elites.

When Trump won, commentators kept bringing up the Brexit vote, which was also an obvious and thorough rejection of elitism. But the likely election of Bolsonaro, plus anti-elitist victories in Austria, Hungary and the Philippines, and talk of a new referendum on secession in Scotland, shows just how many voters are tired of having their wishes ridiculed and their difficulties ignored. Even in Catalonia, where the drive for independence has stalled, this year’s pro-independence march was larger than ever.

In Brazil, Lula’s 2002 election was used by many commentators as evidence that Latin America was swinging to the Left, perhaps permanently. Sixteen years later, Lula is in prison, and his left-leaning counterparts in Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua are all facing either prison or serious national uprisings. The “forgotten men and women” are embracing a nasty form of revenge.

Edward Lynch is a professor of political science at Hollins University. He will deliver a series of lectures in Brazil in December.