Anyone who uses social media as their main source of information can imagine living in one.
In fact, this Brazil dominated by polarization is inhabited by only 10% of citizens — half on the left and half on the extreme right. There are those who feed the bubbles of people engaged in the virtual universe and those who take to the streets, rain or shine, asking for amnesty for Bolsonaro and the 8/1 scammers or to protest against it.
This is what emerges from the project sponsored by the Brazilian branch of the NGO More in Common entitled “The role of the invisibles in Brazil’s political division”.
The survey shows that the population can be divided into six segments with significant consistency of political opinions on different issues. At one end are the 5% that researchers called “militant progressives”; in the other, 6% form the group of “indignant patriots”. They are followed, respectively, by those grouped either on the “traditional left” or among the “traditional conservatives”. Between them, 54% of Brazilians are the “invisible”, absent from the narratives about the polarized country.
Because they do not fit into the usual political classifications, the authors call them “disengaged” and “cautious”. However, depending on your income and education, your opinions are closer to those of “traditional conservatives”.
“Militant progressives” are richer, more educated, whiter and less religious than everyone in the other groups. In an attenuated form, the “traditional left” presents similar characteristics. Together, the two groups do not reach 20% of the population and they differ by income, educational level and skin color.
Not by chance, that was approximately the percentage of valid votes obtained in 2022 by left-wing parties for the Chamber of Deputies.
The Brazilian left is no exception. French economist Thomas Piketty found the same relationship among his countrymen between high education and voting for socialists, which led him to coin the expression and point out the growing distance between progressive parties and workers. Likewise, for many analysts the same process seems to threaten the Democratic Party in the United States.
In Brazil, the existence of a popular leadership of President Lula’s stature has somewhat compensated for the social isolation and electoral weakness of the left. Much larger than his party base and always willing to include the pragmatic right in his coalition government, Lula allowed progressivism, although a minority, to ascend to government. His origin, trajectory and political intuition created the miracle.
Perhaps the next elections will be the last time this happens again. The left will have to find the path that takes them to the majority of voters or they will suffer inevitable isolation.
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