There is a right-wing crisis in Brazil. The conservative camp allowed itself to be carried away by radicalization, started to adopt the language of the extreme right and saw its own political identity become confused with it.
For Odilon Caldeira Neto, professor of contemporary history at UFJF (Federal University of Juiz de Fora), far from a conciliatory thesis, the only way out of this impasse is self-criticism.
In an interview with Sheetthe researcher of neo-fascism and the extreme right in the country reveals the encrypted symbolism that this group uses to communicate, addresses the trend towards the emergence of figures such as influencer Pablo Marçal in the 2026 elections and defends the updating of the mapping framework of these anti-democratic entities, reading, analysis and institutional response.
What is the extreme right today and how does it manifest itself in Brazil?
The far right is a universe of its own. It is defined by the cult of authority and authoritarianism, by xenophobia, by the cult of the past, by the defense of a very specific type of nationality. Above all, it is, from an ideological, programmatic, discursive and effective point of view, antidemocratic. It has the ambition to subvert democracy, not reform it. The Brazilian case was very clear recently.
When we look at the case of , or what we can eventually call Bolsonarism, we see a consolidated historical pattern, but, at the same time, Bolsonaro, in the first moment, consolidated himself through an electoral process. In his re-election, he sought an anti-democratic rupture.
So, these categories, as useful as they are analytically, are tenuous and very thin lines in political reality. If we use an interpretative category for the first Bolsonaro, he would be more in the radical right camp. Afterwards, there is no doubt that he is an extreme right-wing figure. We need to look at the extreme right from this game of past and present and the mutations over the years.
Mr. shook his head when he spoke about Bolsonarism. Can we talk about Bolsonarism as a concept?
From an academic point of view, it is open. To some extent, it was consolidated to use Bolsonarism as an analytical category, more than a concept. It is minimally viable when we understand how Bolsonaro manages to establish a point of convergence between different political actors, [como] it will amalgamate diverse facets of the extreme right, the Brazilian radical right, Catholic conservatism, neo-Pentecostal conservatism, agribusiness, the military, anti-feminism, misogyny. This very plural universe ends up being involved by Bolsonaro — I don’t know if it is so much due to Bolsonaro’s own political capacity or not.
The most important thing is the fact that Bolsonaro, or Bolsonarism, is a far-right phenomenon. From an analytical point of view, it seems more important to point out those categories that are less associated with occasional political figures. We don’t talk about Janism to talk about Janio Quadros, about Malufism, from the point of view of academia, about Aeneism to talk about Enéas. The most important thing is a category that can help us look at the picture in a broader way. Far right and its correlates are more useful in the short, medium and long term.
With the former president in prison, is the tendency for us to continue with extremist discourse or can we think of a moderate right in the coming years? Should we get used to extremism?
We can never get used to extremism… A very necessary issue, although very unlikely, is the need for immense self-criticism on the part of the Brazilian right, because the discrediting of political electoral processes and the inviolability of electronic voting machines precede… They were naturalized even before Bolsonaro’s rise. This gradually intensified, especially after the process of Bolsonaro’s arrival at the leadership of the political field and, subsequently, the election, leading to a radicalization of the conservative field.
The Brazilian conservative camp begins to speak in extreme right-wing language. Even the right-wing political identity in Brazil is confused with the extreme right-wing political identity. It is unlikely, but it is necessary for the right to carry out self-criticism to understand what was lost and what needs to be done from now on. We can hope for this return to normality. There is a crisis among the right-wing in Brazil, which has allowed itself to be led to its own radicalization, and this crisis needs to be resolved with a series of self-criticism.
Mr. Do you believe that a figure like this could emerge in the 2026 presidential or proportional elections, with this digital, disruptive profile?
It’s a trend, for several reasons. From the majority point of view, it seems unlikely to me. The arrangement of the Bolsonarist camp is an attempt to maintain cohesion. The political strategy that seems to be adopted by Jair Bolsonaro and the key figures of the Bolsonaro clan is an attempt to maintain power. At this moment, a more disruptive figure, not only for the nerve center of Bolsonarism, but from a strategic point of view, will not stand up to the figure of the Bolsonarist camp.
Now, if we look at the broader universe, at the field of state and federal deputies, without a doubt we will see a dispersion of the far-right repertoire across the most diverse associative agendas, which may be associated with the universe of ultraliberalism, nodding not only to the exponents of the Bolsonarist camp itself, but having the strategies of figures such as .
The logic of ultraliberalism, of the self-made man, which was already brought up by Pablo Marçal in the most recent elections, tends to intensify. From the point of view of local politics, identity issues, issues of reproductive rights, moral and religious conservatism, these are more intensified issues.
This year, the series “” gained a lot of prominence, with the issue of teenagers using red pill symbols. There was also the case of the video, in which [foi revelado que] Pedophiles used language to stay under the radar. Mr. there is work in this direction [de estudo da simbologia]the Topography of Extremism. Are political symbols being used under the radar?
In this universe of online radicalization, there is a very fluid space of symbolism, discourse, and political identity. It is what I prefer to call the universe of neofascism itself, which transcends institutional politics. They are organizations, political tendencies that look with absolute discredit and hatred towards democratic political institutions and begin to rescue the past, of national socialism, Brazilian integralism, Italian fascism, as well as update their repertoires.
Therefore, these anti-institutional groups, these neo-fascist extreme right groups will use symbols that are outside the mainstream of politics. Either because they are symbols that were used decades ago in the universe of historical fascism, or because they will use encrypted symbols that make reference to this universe, such as some emojis. For example, the skull can mean both the idea of the cult of death and the idea of an identity of accelerationism, which is a substrand of the more recent extreme right. The idea of the sword, the glass of milk, the glass of wine, the lightning, making a double reference to the Nazi SS.
Brazilian legislation explicitly prohibits Nazi symbolism, such as the swastika, in support of . What other far-right symbols and currents would you add to this list?
The problem of the extreme right, as thought in Brazil, was able to respond to the urgencies of the democratic transition, when the formation of a late neo-fascism began to exist in Brazil: neo-Nazism, neo-fascism, and neo-integralism. Currently, there is a very distinct symbolic universe. Is it just a matter of updating the symbol ban: instead of having one symbol, would it be necessary to have 30 symbols to be banned? This is a debate, but don’t exhaust yourself in this way, because the symbols are being constructed.
It is important for security agencies to maintain and expand their perception of the complexity of this universe. In other words, more than just fixing the legal point of view, it is necessary to expand the mapping scenario of these anti-democratic entities, reading, analysis and institutional response. If the issue were resolved exclusively from a legal point of view, by discussing which symbols are or are not prohibited, which are legalized with reservations, we would stop thinking about prevention and reading the phenomenon. But, without a doubt, a debate is also needed on updating these symbols and looking at success stories, such as Germany and other countries.
X-ray | Odilon Caldeira Neto, 41
Historian, professor of contemporary history at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora and researcher at CNPq, he is coordinator of the Observatory of the Far Right and the Laboratory of Political and Social History at UFJF and author of “Neofascism and the Far Right in Brazil” (Cambridge University Press, 2025) and co-author of “O Fascismo em Camisas Verdes” (FGV Editora, 2020).
