First he was used by the Prime Minister of Ontario, Canadian province. , the blue cap took the words “Canada is not on sale.” Then it was released by leaders of. Also blue, the accessory stamped the message.
Both were a response to and to that in their in the United States. In Brazil, however, the accessory was also directed to the honeymoon pocket opposition with the American, which has already threatened to increase tariffs on Brazilian products.
Alexandre Padilha (Institutional Relations) and (communication), the cap sought to expose the contradiction of nationalism booked by, who walks hand in hand with the populism adopted by him.
“Fits like a glove,” the senator told MyNews. “I don’t think it’s very suitable to clap for a foreign country and forget about our interests.”
Criticized by the opposition, the accessory was also misunderstood by the leftist electorate, who considered a mistake to reinforce a nationalist message in the midst of positioning the immigrant as the enemy-as Trump or the Hungarian Prime Minister.
PhD in Political Science and Professor at UFPel (Federal University of Pelotas), Daniel de Mendonça disagrees with this criticism and says he has always been associated.
“It is not a nationalism that aims to assault another people, but to defend Brazil from possible aggressions. There is no problem in a nationalism aimed at the integration of peoples, helping African or Latin American countries.”
The cap was launched by the government as activists and academics discuss whether the left should also as an attempt to defeat the populist right.
For Mendonça, the accessory has populist traits and can represent a first step in this regard. “There is the mark, perhaps, from the beginning of a shutter from leftist populism. I don’t say so sincere, but from a political strategy,” he says.
Although populism has throughout the 20th century, the concept is complex and very disputed. One of the most referenced conceptualizations is that of Argentine, which treats populism not as an ideology, with linked content, but as a political form or logic of building a people that challenges a hegemonic power.
Throughout history, right and left, populist governments have been marked by the rhetoric of the people against the elites and the presence of a charismatic leader who stood as representative of these people.
“Populism is not a kind of fascism, authoritarianism, nor a kind of radicalization of democracy. It may be all. It has no associated ideology. It is the political construction of a people against its enemy,” says Mendonça, who is dedicated to the study of the theme.
For Thomás de Barros, a doctor of political science and “what we talk about when we talk about populism,” populism inserts into policy sectors that were on the sidelines or that were on the sidelines, without voice. “There are more or less democratic ways to incorporate these sectors,” he says.
Lula and Bolsonaro are representatives of two different populism. The first follows a Latin American left-wing populist lineage, ranging from Getúlio Vargas and Juan Domingo Perón AE. The second integrates the contemporary right populism of Trump, Orbán e.
Thomás understands that the Brazilian left could assume a more populist character that aimed to bring the invisible public to the public sphere. He states that the speech needs to be more confronting, transgressor and bold – as the far right has been.
“Lula’s campaign in 2022 had a populist dimension, but paradoxically is a conserving speech, no one is against it, but has a lot of dysfunctionalities,” he says.
“The government might have focused on a return to normality, which is antipopulism. It is not wanting to transform the political field: let’s keep it as always.”
For Mendonça, it would be difficult for Lula to take on a truly populist stance on.
“Today Brazil is a country where the right has a moral hegemony. It is very complicated that leftist populist discourses that privilege the collective, homogenize in a Brazil in which what matters is each one for itself and God for all.” , says. “I don’t know if the PT as a government is really in order to dispute this hegemony.”
Left populism finds echo in figures such as Chantal Mouffe philosophers and, but also.
In an interview with SheetGerman-American political scientist argues that right-wing populism won the left in virtually all electoral disputes.
He acknowledges that in countries with extreme forms of inequality, it is possible to imagine the opposite scenario – so that the result, in practice, was often disastrous ,.
“In most cases, and I think I would include Brazil, at this moment a society with a growing middle class and relatively rapid economic growth, the idea that a left -wing populist will defeat the right -wing one is a positive form of thought.” , it says.
Mounk understands populism as a claim of exclusive representation of the people, which involves a reluctance to tolerate opposition or respecting independent institutions. In this sense, he offers another argument against this political logic in the book “The People Against Democracy.”
The researcher writes that while there is a democratic element in populism, it may also be the omen: “After populist leaders get rid of the liberal obstacles that prevent the expression of popular will, it is very easy for them to turn their backs on the people, when their priorities begin to conflict with their own. “
