What explains the rise of far -right populism in Western democracies? The answers range from those that highlight socioeconomic dimensions to cultural and moral factors. But they all seem to agree that leaders and populist movements exploit feelings of abandonment, humiliation and antielitis resentment nourished by people and losing groups in the changes brought by globalization.
This is why the poor whites in the US regions where employment has evaporated when industries have migrated to other countries are the most loyal voters. The same is true in France, where the National Front (FN) reaps the votes of both economically decaying areas and small bourgeoisie, some and the other frightened by dark -skinned immigrants. This also occurs in the ancient East Germany, where the robust majority believes that the country’s reunification was imposed by the rich countrymen of the West. In the former German Democratic Republic (ADR) thrive the most solid foundations of the extremist of the alternative to Germany (AFD).
The inequalities exploited by the far right are not only economic – in employment and income. There are educational differences, culture, lifestyles and beliefs that separate “the people” from the elites – conservative or progressive. The “losers” do not usually reach universities. In the US, they have more health problems; They are more likely to drug; They live less than the most educated; They have fewer friends; and barely frequent networks of coexistence.
Explanations that seem appropriate to the US and European democracies do not help to understand right -wing populism in Brazil: they cannot explain the popularity of. We need other hypotheses and more studies on what is original in the Brazilian experience.
Although the former scammer captain has harvested votes on different strata-which was waiting in a majority election-, the hard core of his supporters is formed by men; White; Evangelicals; average and high income; middle level education; inhabitants of the south and southeast. In this group, about 90% declared in 2018 the intention to vote for Bolsonaro. It was also high-there is-the sympathy for the former president in the states where export agriculture moves the local economy.
Thus, supporters of the far -right far right are not disinherited from luck, but rather beneficiaries – in a greater or lesser extent – of the economic bonanza of the first decade of the century, pulled by the boom of commodities and inclusion policies.
Here the antitelist discourse typical of populism does not seem to feed on resentment, feeling of loss and expectation back to a better past. Perhaps it is giving voice to another kind of social experience and appeals to a notion of society and country based on belief in progress as the result of individual effort; in contempt for collective forms of action; in moralism in customs; in rejection of the public sector, regarded as a source of corruption and waste.
If so, it is not enough to ridicule leaders or denounce the demagogy of their appeals. You need to understand who follows them.
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