Recent polls suggest that the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, is the favourite to win the country’s 2022 election. This is the president who, rather than urging his citizens to avoid gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19, went for a swim on a crowded beach on New Year’s Day. The president who, in the middle of a pandemic, announced a series of decrees to make owning guns easier. His repeated downplaying of the severity of the pandemic, as well as the changes to gun laws, may have damaged Bolsonaro’s image among some of his voters, but not to the extent that many expected. Why?
One explanation may come from the ‘active knowledge’ industry, which has emerged in support of Bolsonaro's crusade against the Left. Like other politicians committed to a populist radical Right agenda, President Bolsonaro has encouraged people to question the educational materials available at universities and public schools. According to him, Marxist ideas have become dominant in the Brazilian educational system, forming citizens who believe in equal rights, regardless of gender, race, and sexual orientation. As a right-wing Christian politician, he feels these ideas threaten the notion of a ‘traditional family’ and signify the degeneration of society.
In this context, whatever Bolsonaro says or does is justified as an act of patriotism. It is telling that many of his supporters have dubbed him “the Myth”. By doing so, they place him in the position of a saviour, a nearly divine figure who is capable of cleansing Brazil from its most pressing problems, which, in their views, are directly associated with progressive leftist ideas.
