Trump, the Brazilian Far-Right, and the 2022 Presidential Elections
Being hated by Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders is not the only thing that Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have in common. The spread of misinformation on social media platforms, the overwhelming support from evangelical communities, and the distrust of the electoral system are as prominent in the minds of Brazilians when they think of their current president, Bolsonaro, as they are in the minds of many Americans when remembering Trump. As the fourth largest democracy in the world took to the polls to vote on a new president on October 2nd, Bolsonaro’s base eagerly showed that they would not allow the left to regain power in Brazil. Bolsonaro’s actions while president, including hateful speech toward the left and hiding his borderline authoritarian regime under a religious facade led to an unfettered rise in the Brazilian far-right. Similar factors also became prominent in the United States under Trump’s administration, culminating in dystopian demonstrations following Joe Biden’s election in 2020. Trump’s avid support of Bolsonaro’s behavior foreshadows the rise of a powerful yet fearless president, who strengthened his hateful speech after receiving the “green light” from Donald Trump. It is clear that Trump’s anti-democratic actions were damaging not only to the United States but to other democratic nations as well. Several of Bolsonaro’s actions during his presidency, including the strengthening of the Brazilian far-right in the last few years, can be attributed to Trump’s support.
Throughout the last four years, Trump and Bolsonaro were seen interacting in multiple instances, during which they shared amicable words and their approval of each other’s politics. After the 2020 election which elected President Joe Biden, Trump was banned from social media for spreading misinformation regarding election fraud. Bolsonaro followed the same path in Brazil. When presidential campaigns began in Brazil at the end of 2021, the poll numbers of Bolsonaro's main opponent—and former leftist president of Brazil—Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva rose exponentially, leading Bolsonaro to use a strategy similar to Trump's. Bolsonaro started by attacking the country’s electronic voting system and suggesting that the country return to paper ballots, culminating in his claim that if Lula won the election it would be due to fraud.
Even after poorly handling the pandemic that led to almost 700,000 deaths, allowing for extreme deforestation to take place in the Amazon and creating one of the most polarized electorates in Brazilian history, Bolsonaro was still able to gain support from a variety of groups in Brazil. His main supporters come from evangelical and other protestant communities, the white middle-class, and the military. The fear of the left seems to be making his popularity more widespread in indigenous communities in the north and poorer areas of the southeast. Fear-mongering through Bolsonaro’s extremist propaganda and strong social media presence, similar to Trump, are the main factors polarizing the country and raising questions of democratic legitimacy with the results of the election.
Leading up to the first round of voting, Bolsonaro tweeted a video of Donald Trump calling him one of the greatest world leaders and endorsing his candidacy, while urging the Brazilian people to reelect him. The responses were mixed. His supporters, who sympathize with Donald Trump, used his message as a way to show that important figures on the international stage support Bolsonaro, and thus, that he is a legitimate candidate. The Brazilian left, which has strong socialist associations and is generally critical of Trump, had strong opinions against the message. All of these factors were reflected in public opinion polls that showed Lula having the upper hand among the electorate with over 50 percent of vote intention among those polled, predicting him to be elected for a third, non-consecutive term.
However, the reality was different from what the polls indicated. When the vote count was finalized on the night of October 2, Lula’s advantage was far smaller than expected. Lula received 48.4 percent of the votes and Bolsonaro 43.2 percent. In Brazil’s multi-party system, for a candidate to win the election in the first round, they must receive over 50 percent of votes, and while most news sources believed Lula would win in the first round, he will be facing the incumbent for an extremely competitive runoff election on October 30th.
It is important to note that former president Lula, from the Worker’s Party (PT), was arrested in 2018 due to corruption allegations, and spent over a year in prison before the Supreme Court renounced the charges against him. Bolsonaro’s supporters were infuriated when he was released from prison, and the current president used this sentiment to create a platform against any and all candidates that lean towards the left, allowing him to move further to the right of the political spectrum loosening gun laws and even threatening the rights of LGBTQ+ people. Now, when Brazil had actually been given the choice to reflect on the last four years under Bolsonaro’s rule and vote accordingly, even voters who did not believe in Bolsonaro and condemned his actions felt the effects of his half-decade campaign to damage the left’s reputation. Therefore, the idea of voting for Lula, a former president who was also a former inmate, seemed daunting, and when voters went to the polls, fearmongering and misinformation made those on the fence vote for Bolsonaro, causing him to get way more votes than the polls predicted.
As the country gets ready for a cutthroat runoff election at the end of the month, talks about whether Bolsonaro will concede if he loses, and if democracy in Brazil is threatened, emerge with even more urgency. After the happenings of January 6th, 2021, along with the amount of admiration that Bolsonaro has for Trump, people fear that Bolsonaro might reenact a similar demonstration to avoid stepping down. An attack on democracy in Brazil might be even more damaging as Bolsonaro has overwhelming support from the military due to having served for several years. Hope lies in the fact that the right, and especially Bolsonaro’s party, gained a solid number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and Senate, which might calm his supporters’ spirits and lead to a peaceful and democratic concession once the vote count is done.
The rise of the Brazilian far-right and the consolidation of Bolsonaro’s image, which formed while Trump showed support for his South American counterpart, shows how interconnected the world is, and how political actions by one leader might serve as inspiration to others. Trump’s anti-democratic speech and fear-mongering towards the Democratic Party allowed him to gain a large number of supporters that are loyal to a fault, and to later conduct an attack on American democracy. Bolsonaro has been heading down the same road, and Trump’s actions proved extremely influential in shaping Bolsonaro’s speech, especially regarding election fraud. For that reason, the spread of misinformation on social media is likely one of the most dangerous actions that a political leader can take to polarize the electorate.
It is imperative that platforms find a balance between allowing freedom of speech and stopping dangerous information from being spread, and take the responsibility for tackling fake news and fear-mongering amongst political figures. This presidential election in Brazil is a prime example of how influential, repetitive speech and partisan social media posts can be to the democratic health of a nation. On October 30, it is important that Brazilians are mindful of the information they are consuming and engaging with. Hope remains that a peaceful transfer of power will take place in one of the world’s largest democracies and that even though Bolsonaro and Trump are similar, the Brazilian president and his supporters will choose to be on the right side of history if he loses, protecting the integrity of the Brazilian democratic system.