Subjectivity and Symbolism: The Construction of the “Bolsonarist Folk”

In the last decade, studies on personalism, supremacy, populism, and their relations to the far-right phenomenon in Latin America have deepened. These studies have focused on problematising the concept of populism, aiming to understand its regional particularities in their specific historical, social, and political contexts (^{Gidron & Hall, 2017}; ^{Mansbridge & Macedo, 2019}). Studies on personalism and supremacism have sought to understand the weaknesses of public institutions and presidentialist constitutionalism in the emergence of different forms of authoritarianism in Latin America (^{Hawkins, 2010}; ^{Horowitz, 1999}; ^{Landau, 2020}). According to ^{Moffitt (2016)}, populism is a political style, the essence of which lies primarily in the mediated performances of leaders rather than in the content or ideology of the political system.

For some academics (e.g., ^{Laclau & Mouffe, 2004}; Mouffe, 2005), moments of high dramatization and personalistic exaltation, such as the period before elections, would be cataloged as populist moments. In this exceptional time, political identification occurs in two ways: the leader embodies values and ideas among society, while sympathisers embody the leader (^{Weber, 1992}; ^{Da Matta, 1983}). In this period, ideas and proposals are ordered through elements that facilitate an understanding, elements society identifies with, and that mobilize emotionally towards a new stage, channelled through these political hero-leaders (^{Errejón & Mouffe, 2015}; ^{Christofoletti, 2022}).

Drawing on Ernesto ^{Laclau’s conception of populism (2005)}, three foundational strategies organize the identity of the Bolsonarist phenomenon: chain of equivalence, empty signifier, and antagonistic frontier. Bolsonarism arranges its political module of collective mobilization via these three Laclauian notions. We use these concepts as analytical categories to study some of the main symbolic constructions of Bolsonaro’s Live broadcasts.

The first one, a “chain of equivalence,” allows for chaining multitudes of demands from different social forces and factions to be channelled to create inertia against the status quo. Every social force—point of the chain—has its own distinct position, position-taking, and relation to existing hegemony.

Laclau is explicit here; for him, “equivalent” does not equate to “being identical.” They are not exploited or alienated in the same way. Each point of the chain remains singular, yet they collectively operate in unison (^{Soares et al., 2018}). Here, the symbol becomes the key unifying and mobilizing emblem that aggregates and concretises sectional particularism into a mass demand (^{Mendonça & Caetano, 2021}).

An empirical example is the political crisis in Brazil that started in 2013. Chronologically, the key public events that shaped this shift were economic demonstrations in June 2013, protests during the 2014 World Cup, public demonstrations demanding the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2015, and military intervention in Rio de Janeiro in 2018. What began in 2013 as a pluralist expression of disaffection by various sectors acquired a distorted form until the discontent of the conservative sectors was gradually channelled into the Bolsonarist project. Through symbols, Bolsonarism acquired the character of a political phenomenon, capable of channelling and representing the country’s conservative demands. All these demands were organized in chains of equivalence, which gained meaning and order by using symbols that acted as “empty signifiers” (^{Bayarri, 2022}).

The second concept, linked to the first, is “empty signifier,” which allows for conjoining disparate social energies and demands via creating a link between equivalence and representation apropos the one unique empty signifier (the leader, the slogan, imagery, or symbolism). At this historical moment that we can call a “Window of Opportunity” (readapting Gramsci’s concept of the crisis of hegemony (Gramsci, 1971; Gramsci, 1978)), Bolsonarism began to signify such chains of equivalence through various symbolic strategies and symbolism (^{Umpierrez de Reguero et al., 2022}).

Symbolism is the vehicle and the strategy of organizing the new (^{Pérez-Curiel & Limón-Naharro, 2019}). In this sense, we see the crisis of subjectivity in our world as the crisis of renaming the already named against the inertia of the historical count.

The third concept, “antagonistic frontier,” allows inverting existing hierarchies via restructuring the binary in favour of “good citizens” against “bandits.” In the construction of a collective subject called the “folk,” Bolsonarism, following ^{Laclau and Mouffe (2004)}, attempts to redefine the frontier of political identification by strengthening the rhetoric of political polarization: we against them. The Bolsonarist folk is the mass chain of equivalence beyond a specific ideological identity. For the organization of this chain of equivalence, it is fundamental that there would be an enemy, an identified culprit, who would group all demands into a common field (^{Ruiz, 2021}).

The telos of this strategy is “transversality,” which is the re-conceptualisation, renaming, and valorisation of certain symbolisms in service of the Bolsonarist exclusionary political project (^{Serrano, 2019}).

Digital Populism: A President as an Influencer Figure

Brazil is a country with a growing number of social media users (^{Nasir et al., 2018}; ^{Da Silveira, 2017}; ²⁰¹⁹), who have become a relevant target audience for far-right actors to exploit communications technology to advance their ideology and diverse economic interests (^{De Gregorio & Goanta, 2022}). Although the use of online platforms for the dissemination of political propaganda, collective mobilization, and discursive construction of the far-right has been widely studied in Western countries (^{Gheorghe, 2019}; ^{Conway et al., 2019}), a gap exists in terms of how the far-right operates in the Global South, especially in Brazil.

The country presents a growing group of political influencers with a presence on various social networks, where they build audiences and sell far-right ideology through intimate and accessible relationships with the audiences of their content (^{Lewis, 2018}). Influencers are authentic communicators on social media and can be defined as opinion leaders active on social networks (Lewis, 2018). These users have a high number of followers, are admired, followed by the public, and heard by the crowd (^{Romero et al., 2011}). In the case of political influencers, they are often celebrities who are very effective in fusing political content with personal branding communication techniques to gain audience and followers (^{Casero-Ripollés, 2020}; ^{Berrocal Gonzalo, 2017}; Leidig & ^{Bayarri, 2022}).

Regarding the phenomenon of “Instafame,” ^{Marwick (2015)} argues that it is a “variety of celebrity” who manages a mentality and a set of self-presentation practices endemic to social media. As for political influencers, they strategically design a profile, target followers, and reveal personal information about their habits and non-verbal forms of expression to increase attention and thus enhance their online status (^{Senft, 2013}).

Previous studies indicate that political influencers in Brazil begin by focusing their attention on fashion and aesthetic issues and then turn toward strategic elements to establish a political brand (^{Da Silva & Tessarolo, 2016}). Political influencers are mainly characterized by the following aspects that determine whether they enjoy celebrity traits: reach, resonance, and relevance (^{Time Influency.me, 2019}; ^{Arias-Maldonado, 2016}). They are usually bearers of authority on social networks, as they have become opinion leaders and stand out for their testimonials and for having legitimacy to validate the content they transmit via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube (^{Maly, 2020}).

This figure of the political influencer is often legitimized and supported by the dynamics surrounding influencer marketing, specifically by what is known as micro-influencers. In the case of politicians, they tend to take advantage of the supporters of their parties without the need to create them from scratch (^{Fullana, 2022}).

One of the techniques most used by Jair Bolsonaro, in which he acted as a political influencer and celebrity, was decontextualisation. The former president took advantage of different online platforms to construct new meanings through concrete objects, such as the construction of a discourse around reducing violence in Brazil after the release of licenses for the use of firearms.

In this scenario of information bubbles and disorder in which the political consolidation of far-right movements occurs, the production of truths has passed into the hands of political influencers. These truths, issued through comments and testimonies, substantiate and validate the content they transmit in a dynamic that potentiates disinformation and political polarization (^{Colussi, 2020}; ^{Beraba, 2022}). Also, the digital spaces maintained by these influencers can constitute a new kind of third space where the emergence of political topics can have a greater impact on the political behavior of the influencers’ followers (^{Suuronen et al., 2022}).

In this way, influencers act as gurus, self-proclaiming their authority base and rejecting the validation of their knowledge by scholarly institutions and empirical demonstration (^{Peres-Neto, 2022}). This production of truths in social networks related to the communicative strategies of far-right parties has been referred to as “pop far-right” (^{Goldstein, 2019}) or “digital populism” (^{Cesarino, 2020}; ^{Gerbaudo, 2018}).

Elements Regarding Populism

Bolsonarism has formed and matured hand in hand with the emergence of a set of symbolisms that aggregates fragmented and disjointed multiples into unified majorities—albeit an ephemeral unity in struggle and motion (^{Ortiz, 2022}). Some of the main symbols that have accompanied and reinforced the movement’s narrative are the reinterpretation of the idea of “patriotism,” the redefinition of the flag, the national anthem, and the concept of “citizenship.”

In the Lives broadcasted on Thursdays at 7 pm (local time in Brasilia), Bolsonaro assumes the role of a presenter and political leader who informs his followers on social networks. The video scenarios alternate between an office with a library full of books and a supposedly improvised space with the Brazilian flag in the background, elements that, respectively, refer to knowledge and the fatherland. The clothing worn by the president in these live performances varies between a suit with a tie and casual short-sleeved shirts (see Figure 1), one of the elements that make him look like an ordinary citizen.

Source: Instagram playback (@jairmessiasbolsonaro)

Figure 1 Live scenario broadcast on 28/04/2022 

These videos, characterized by a homemade production using a mobile device, favour the informality of Bolsonaro’s gestures and speech. In front of the camera and in the foreground, the president looks at his Casio watch—an inexpensive, plastic watch with which he tries to identify himself as a man of the people, without showing habits of excess, as opposed to the corruption and waste of public money that characterise the political class—to announce the time and start each Live. He moves his hand to pick up his glasses and read notes published by the press, which are also part of the stage. At this point, he introduces the guests—ministers or secretaries of his government—who support him in the construction of his speech. There is a limited and controlled interactivity, which departs from the social networks’ commitment to a conversational, horizontal, and spontaneous environment.

As he comments on the agenda items selected by his team of advisors, we are struck by the characteristics of Bolsonaro’s non-verbal communication: he moves his hands frequently towards the camera, bringing them closer to the viewer and pointing his right index finger to defend an idea or argument; when making criticisms or verbal aggression, he opens his eyes and mouth exaggeratedly, and moves his head forward. These movements are synchronised with his tone of voice, which alters according to the subject matter. When it comes, for example, to attacks on the press or criticism of the left, the political leader raises his tone of voice while, at the same time, calming down and speaking more softly as he reports on positive actions carried out by his government. Laughter is also present, especially when he is ironic or praises his ministers.

The use of vulgar and informal language stands out, which is another element that brings Bolsonaro closer to the common citizen. Examples include shortening words and verbs and employing slang or colloquial expressions. In Video 2, when using an aggressive tone to accuse the PT of corruption, the president confesses that he uses swear words: “Then I said a swear word. There is no way!” (26’27”). In another context, to discredit the press, he says, “This here is a shot in the water! It’s embarrassing! Shame!” (Video 6, 29’18”).

Populism also differs from traditional political ideologies in that the leader does not represent but actually embodies “the people” (Moffit, 2016). In this sense, the vulgarity expressed by Bolsonaro is a central element of representation of the common man, with all the virtues that this would imply (sincerity, honesty, spontaneity, and a series of other moral values with respect to the professional politician).

“Brazil Above Everything, God Above Everyone”

In Brazilian social thought, the significance of relationships is like in countless other cultures. Messages, frequently used in the content disseminated on social networks by the far-right, often employ resources such as metaphors, which, according to ^{Musolff (2016)}, provide an added pragmatic value to descriptions. Thus, complex ideas about human relationships are ordered as metaphorical narratives (^{Lakoff, 2002}; ^{Dekoninck & Schmuck, 2022}).

Nevertheless, conservatism, a characteristic of the far-right, has different cultural expressions in the international context. In the case of Bolsonaro’s Lives, this is represented through religion, family, and the fatherland, embodied in the slogan used during his 2018 and 2022 election campaign: “Brazil above everything, God above everyone.” In this way, he manages to attract evangelical and Christian followers who “defend” the family and the fatherland.

The manifestation of the religious in his speech appears when he mentions the statements of PT senator Roberto Requião, who, according to Bolsonaro, mocked the name of God. The PT senator claimed that the land titles demanded by the Landless Workers Movement should only be granted if they were signed by God. To this, Bolsonaro responded: “A citizen like that, a guy like that is still mocking religions. He still uses the name of God in vain. There are humble people who need a piece of land to survive” (Video 7, 25’03”).

Religiosity is also associated with the defense of the family when criticizing the approval of abortion in Colombia, stating: “In other words, abortion now in Colombia was a Supreme Court decision. Colombia borders Venezuela up there. So, until the sixth month. We have information that it seems that there are people who are born at six months and survive. It is difficult, but they survive. So, here we have a crime” (Video 3, 10’37’’). In the same vein, Bolsonaro judges the PT’s family pattern as “crap” in Video 8, linking it to the liberation of abortion and the deconstruction of heteronormativity.

The discourse around God and the family, which underpins Bolsonaro’s conservatism, also draws on patriotism. In “Our Brazil is always above everything. Let us swear to lay down our lives for our fatherland and, if necessary, also for our freedom” (Video 7, 3’25”), the president links the idea that “Brazil is always above everything” with “swearing to lay down our life for the fatherland and our freedom.” It is worth noting that the defense of the homeland, in addition to being part of the speech, is present on the stage of the videos through the Brazilian flag positioned in the background or on the desk. This scenario is framed in an innovative digital environment, yet steeped in tradition and conventionalism to emulate the institutional.

From the perspective of the populist theory studied, this metaphor would be an example of how signifiers, such as the flag, the fatherland, or God, can be renamed and resignified. This process requires the construction of a collective subjectivity (^{Fischer et al., 2022}), as in the case of Bolsonarism, which exceeds and transcends the current encyclopedia compendium of names (myths, narratives, symbolism, ideology).

Attacks Against Journalists and Political Opposition

Both the press and groups considered the opposition are seen as Bolsonaro’s enemies. As part of his performance in the Lives, he emphasizes his aversion towards the media and journalists. He tends to use press publications with two specific objectives: 1) to highlight the positive actions of his government and 2) to refute the news and attack the media and journalists when the content refers to investigations that question some aspect related to his administration. In this latter case, the accusations refer to the production of fake news by the press and criticism of journalistic work, like in the following statements: “(There’s) a bit of mistaken news here” (Video 5’, 6’25”) and “Fruit of investigative journalism? Investigative, not at all. A bunch of shameless journalists. They don’t investigate anything’ It’s fake news all the time” (Video 8, 21’53’’).

Criticism of the press also continues when discussing issues related to religiosity. In Video 6, the president reinforces the rejection of Christians and evangelicals towards the main Brazilian television channel that questioned the actions of the Bolsonaro government: “Some televisions like Globo, which always feels resentment towards evangelicals, towards Christ, and takes advantage of it to potentiate” (23’10”). In the same Live, he expresses his wish that the Public Ministry would investigate the publications of Folha de S.Paulo. After characterizing the journalistic work of this newspaper as “cowardly,” he states that: “I wanted the Public Ministry to investigate all the newspaper stories that are going around” (Video 6, 28’59”).

The Brazilian press is constantly under attack and only stops being so when it reports on positive aspects of the Bolsonaro administration. For example, the Jovem Pan channel was not attacked at all. This channel broadcasted Bolsonaro’s Lives and tripled its advertising income during the president’s term in office. This channel became the voice of Bolsonarism (^{Chaves et al., 2022}; ^{Soprana et al., 2022}). Furthermore, in early January 2023 (just after the entry of the new Lula administration), the same channel received a complaint from the Public Ministry accusing it of producing and disseminating fake news (^{Feltrin, 2023}).

Similarly, Bolsonaro employs an aggressive discourse toward the opposition represented by politicians affiliated with left-wing parties. Referring to the vote on the fake news legislative proposal in Video 8, the president states that he would not even have read such a proposal because the author is a member of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB). In the statement: “So, as a rule, any project that comes from the Pt, PCdoB, and PSOL (Socialism and Freedom Party), you can vote against without reading. They rarely present a good project” (Video 8, 4’40’’), he normalizes the attack on the opposition by affirming that their projects of law are not relevant to the citizenry, accusing them, in this case, of “using the weapons of democracy to install socialism in Brazil.” In another fragment, he concludes by accusing the opposition political parties of installing censorship: “That is, they would be starting censorship in our country” (Video 8, 5’05’’).

Criticism of the PT, which has Lula as its greatest representative, is constant in Bolsonaro’s Lives, as seen, for example, in statements like the following: “The PT never cared about the people of the countryside. This talk of agrarian reform was just marketing” (Video 7, 4’45”) and “This is the government of the PT: just projects outside, all concluded and very well done” (Video 2, 31’06”).

By attacking the opposition and the press, Bolsonaro creates an ideal scenario to argue that the best channel for citizens to be well-informed is through his official accounts on social networks, where he can disseminate the information that suits him, without filters or mediation, and make use of populist elements by acting as a political influencer. With this operation, Bolsonaro would strengthen a frontier of political identification between an “us” and “them,” which would outline the identities of collectives and reinforce the concept of the enemy, in this case, the press and political opposition.

From the Use of Opinion Without References to Negationism

By discrediting the press and journalists, Bolsonaro has prepared the ground to express his views without using references. In this context, the president gives his opinion following the most representative ideas of the far-right without any sources or figures from research or studies. This is one of the scenarios propitious for generating political polarization and disinformation.

The speech below illustrates how he deals with topics related to the Covid-19 pandemic without including any scientific data: “I’ll give a tip to the scientists: in sub-Saharan Africa, it’s very common to have a disease called river blindness, and people take a little drug from the river to treat blindness. And there are also many cases of malaria. People take other drugs to fight malaria. These two medicines, which cost a pittance, by coincidence or not, there in Africa, also fought Covid” (Video 7, 15’19”). In this fragment, the president refers to a homemade medicine that, according to him, fought the virus in Africa.

Still on the pandemic, without presenting any scientific data, Bolsonaro states: “For young people, the chances of aggravating the virus is 0.0 or so” (Video 3, 16’27’’), reinforcing the idea that the probability of young people and children dying from the disease is practically nil, even though figures from the Butantan Institute indicate that almost 1,500 children up to the age of 11 died from Covid-19 in Brazil from the start of the pandemic until December 2021 (^{Portal do Butantan, 2022}). On the same topic, in Video 9, the president insisted that vaccines against the virus were scientifically unproven, as were drugs discovered by chance (Video 9, 14’05’’).

It should be noted that assertions and opinions without including data, references, or sources cover other topics, such as corruption. Without presenting evidence, Bolsonaro implies in his Lives that there is only corruption in PT governments. Subsequently, he explains why there is no corruption in his administration—claiming that he is superior to other politicians: “Why is there no corruption in my government? We are one step ahead” (Video 6, 21’13”).

This type of opinion implies negationism, present in a fragment of Video 4, in which, when mentioning the criticism received from the press and international political leaders regarding the fires in Amazonia, he is assertive in denying, without any scientific data, that this area does not burn because it is humid: “Whoever says that the Amazon is on fire is lying. The Amazon is not on fire, the rainforest does not burn” (Video 4, 54’16’’). Something similar is observed when Bolsonaro states that the crisis in the economy is related to preventive isolation during the pandemic: “Why did the economy go down in 2020? Because of the irresponsible policy of staying at home. We’ll see the economy later” (Video 5, 12’22”), denying thus other dimensions in the economic crisis in Brazil.

Bolsonaro’s discourse in his Lives is also characterized by authoritarianism. The president presents himself as the bearer of truth in absolute terms. In the following fragment, he affirms that, despite not being a journalist, he transmits “good information” to the public: “I have no relation to journalism. My background is different: military and physical education. But I try to do my best and always transmit good information to all of you” (Video 5, 40’38”). In line with this statement, in several videos, the president invites his followers to get information through his official accounts on social networks, where they will find the most accurate information. Thus, he seeks to ensure that citizens receive disintermediated and biased information, minimizing the possibilities for them to have access to a plurality of voices and sources.

This case would represent one of the nodes that make up what we have defined in ^{Laclau’s theory as the “chain of equivalence.” For Laclau (2005)}, each social force not only has its own singular, specific trajectory, social interest, forms of exploitation, and material wants but also its own point of difference. Bolsonaro could appeal to a negationist discourse that would not necessarily be endorsed by all his sympathisers but would build one more piece in the puzzle of ideas, ultimately consumed as a specific worldview capable of articulating apparently contradictory views. Under the chain of equivalence, these differences are retained and respected, given that they are organised to gravitate around the agenda of equivalence.

The chain of equivalence creates an intersection between these social forces and factions only through the points being interpellated via the emblem or symbol, in this case, the political and journalistic lie, capable of deceiving citizens about the reality of Covid-19 or the “fake deforestation” of the Amazon.