It was in January 2016 that the phrase echoed around the world: “I could get to Fifth Avenue, shoot someone and I wouldn’t lose a vote.” The most brutal declaration ever seen in a democracy went down in history, mixing personality cult, voter loyalty test and absolute contempt for political accountability.
A few months later, a long text in “Politico”, signed by Zachary Karabell, titled: . It was alleged that he had crossed the invisible line of decency, the one that drew the line at which the many voters who supported him would no longer have the stomach to put up with his frivolities. He was, as is known, completely mistaken about the nation’s tolerance towards the orange figure.
In the decade, than the last bestiality said or done. With him, the well of indecency seems bottomless. On Saturday, for example, the official White House account released an AI video in which . And many of his worshipers continue to admit anything and everything to him, even the most controversial statements or the most serious flaws – which often seem to have the opposite effect and generate even more enthusiasm –, while demanding absolute purity from their opponents.
Where Karabell and so many other analysts failed was in reaching the real dimension of emotional attachment to some political leaders. When a political movement turns into a sect, voters stop evaluating with their brains and start thinking with their guts. They stop being voters and become devotees.
Political scientists explain that the phenomenon has several components: the heroic image of the leader, tribal and identity belonging, the emotional charge, double standards and the demonization of the opponent. This reminds me of my son and his crazy adoration for his football team, when as a child he declared: “I’m not from Benfica, I was born from Benfica and that will never change!”.
Many other political leaders over time managed to achieve the status of sect leaders: the darkest, of course, Mao, Stalin and Hitler.
Among contemporary phenomena, it is cited as one of the most notorious examples in the world. The personalist logic of Bolsonarism is so strong that it appears to have been transformed into an almost monarchical movement, in which leadership is hereditary and materialized through dynastic lineage.
This is the only way to explain nepobaby’s nomination as a pre-candidate for the presidential elections. And only the contours of a cult justify that this pre-candidacy has not yet collapsed after everything that has become public in recent days about his close and self-interested relationship with Vorcaro. You play MMA because you are Bolsonaro. If the situation becomes so untenable for Flávio, it remains to be seen whether, in this court, the Salic law that stipulates that only men can inherit the throne also applies, or whether Michelle will be next in line…
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