Brazil: the coming communication battle | Op …

From San Pablo

There is an ongoing debate in Brazil over the use of the word genocidal to name Jair Bolsonaro. PT activists detained during a protest outside the Planalto Palace and digital influencers summoned by justice were two examples this week in the paradoxical crusade not to call things by name. Bolsonaro’s recent preoccupation with words is interesting, coming from someone despising them, measuring no effects or consequences, empathy below zero.

Bolsonaro dominated the country’s political communication until ten days ago, when former President Lula regained his political rights, causing a tsunami. If we separate the barbarities he sets out from the ways of doing politics, three territories have been completely dominated by the current president, like no other political actor: “saw” them on Thursday on their social networks, informal talks with followers in Corralito “which rises daily at the Palacio de la Alvorada, and unexpected public appearances, such as the visit he made to the Supreme Court in September of last year. The first two are the boxes par excellence which generate the cataract of declarations We speak of politics as “acting”, as staging, as theatricality.

Like what generates a permanent pattern of information and defines the agenda. This hypothesis was described by Joao Santana in October 2020. Since last week, this naturalness with which he occupied the entire spectrum of communication is disputed. Lula spoke for more than three hours and forced him to do two almost immediate laps: recognize the vaccine as an essential reality, and change health minister for the fourth time. Recent vaccine support has come with a brand that is a sign of the collapse of Bolonarianism most explicitly: “our weapon is the vaccine”, was the first disclosure.. This resulted in a meme released by his son Eduardo with an adaptation of the character Ze Gotinha, the logo for vaccination campaigns in the country, created in 1986. In the picture, Ze Gotinha has a syringe gun, an open stand for weapons. Death is celebrated, it is the “long life of Franco”, tropicalized. Enter the territory of the perverts, in the middle of the most important health crisis of the country, exalt a weapon. The whirlwind of wanting to react quickly to the new scenario and especially to juggle to keep their speech on the weapons attacked to the new pandemic reality, produces slippages. This meme condenses communal Bolsonarism, it’s a metaphor for an era.

A second example: on Wednesday, March 17, Lula asks Biden to help him get vaccines, through a G-20 meeting to discuss the redistribution of the immunizer to countries that need it most, such as the Brazil. Bolsonaro reacts the next day by showing a letter from February 26 where Biden promises collaboration in this new chapter of the bilateral relationship. This puts him on the defensive, forces him to move the pieces afterwards.

This movement is not free. If Bolsonaro is insensitive to science and knowledge, of course he looks at the polls and acts accordingly. The decline in popularity, added to the scenarios of possible defeat against Lula (34% would surely vote for Lula vs 25% for Bolsonaro, according to data from the Ipec Institute from March 2021) configure this new scenario. Adherence to the provaccine discourse is much more part of this logic than being convinced. The main players in the economy let you know that there is no return to growth without a vaccine.

A more detailed analysis of the investigation highlights a possibly central element in the communication battle to come. Bolsonaro increases from 25% to 39% his voting potential among evangelicals, and conversely, Lula goes from 34% to 27%. When the PT was founded in 1980, evangelicals made up 6.6% of the population. In 2000, two years before Lula’s victory, 15.4%. In 2021, they are 31.8%. They are one of the fundamental pillars of what is called the “new Brazilian right”. Three groups which converge in current Bolonarianism: the most reactionary and the most retrograde right, which calls for military intervention and the closure of the Supreme Court, the volatile “liberal right”, which today adheres to Bolonarism but surfs on the wave of those who defend its neoliberal agenda, with Economy Minister Paulo Guedes as the biggest representative. And the huge contingent of evangelicals. In this argumentative battle, part of Lula’s chances of consolidating the current voting potential are settled, although he naturally has to move more towards the center. Flirting with the “evangelical” vow is hard work. To think that one of the biggest references of the evangelical church, Edir Macedo, declared in March 2020 that the coronavirus was a “tactic of Satan”, and was vaccinated this week in Miami. Satan vaccinated and walking to Disney.

Eduardo Sincofsky is a public opinion consultant.