By FELIPE CALABREZ*
How can a person who does not tolerate the minimum requirements of a 19th century democracy claim to defend democracy?
1.
A few days after Donald Trump's election victory in the US was announced, the former Brazilian president with similar credentials wrote a newspaper article in which he asked us to accept democracy. Jair Bolsonaro argues that there is a conservative wave underway that, despite censorship by the media and the justice system, will remain unstoppable because it is the result of the sovereign decision of the people. We would therefore be faced with the pure expression of democracy.
Now, how is it possible that words in favor of democracy come from a politician who is known to seek to undermine it, whether by denying the credibility of the electoral process, attacking justice institutions and the free press, supporting actions that refuse to accept the result of the election, or even trying to mobilize the armed forces for a military coup in the style of the 1960s, times he misses?
We can begin by agreeing with the former president. In fact, there seems to be a conservative wave underway in Brazil and a strengthening of right-wing political identities. Conservative moral values are legitimate and it is desirable that they find political and institutional channels of expression. However, the agreement ends there.
In a democracy, being a right-wing conservative is legitimate, as is being progressive. Since societies are plural, these worldviews are politically disputed by political parties, which compete with each other in elections and propose public policies that are more aligned with their views. However, as pointed out by the liberal political philosopher John Stuart Mill, back in the 19th century, the freedoms of the individual can only go as far as the freedoms of others. One cannot crush the freedom of an individual in the name of my freedom, just as the will of the majority expressed at the polls cannot oppress the freedoms of the minorities.
During the 20th century, political science produced various concepts of democracy, and all political experiences that we understand as democratic attempted in some way to guarantee the coexistence between majority wills expressed at the polls and the guarantee of individual and minority rights, if you will, popular sovereignty and human rights, which also include freedom of the press.
We know that Jair Bolsonaro represents the opposite of all this. He contests the polls and supports violent demonstrations against the election results, claims that human rights are a “leftist” thing while explicitly supporting torturers, and attacks media outlets that are not subservient to him.
2.
So I ask the question again: How can a guy who doesn't tolerate the minimum requirements of a 19th century democracy claim to defend democracy?
Jair Bolsonaro uses a classic speech and performance populist, which basically consist of discursively constructing a category of “people”, which has nothing to do with popular classes or any sociological category, to contrast it with what would be the illegitimate interests of “powerful people”, which in their grammar would be the media, the very institutions that guarantee the democratic rule of law, as well as artists, intellectuals, an imaginary “communism” and all those who represent plural or progressive values. All filled with a good dose of rudeness and lack of good manners, like its American counterpart.
The fact is that the “people” in his discourse is a profoundly exclusionary category. And in contrast to Donald Trump and the xenophobic European far-right populisms, his enemies are internal. However, by completely inverting the meaning of concepts such as democracy, freedom and authoritarianism, Jair Bolsonaro finds himself able to speak of the will of the people and popular sovereignty.
But populism is the least of its defects. It functions only as a kind of engine for mobilizing diffuse dissatisfactions, many of which are legitimate, but to which are added the most vile political affections, hatred and political intolerance typical of fascism. Thus, populism would be a means; its political project is the death of democratic institutions and of individual freedoms and of groups that do not conform to its authoritarian, intolerant, violent, misogynistic and supposedly religious vision of society. It is the death of democracy.
Thanks to a thriving and pluralistic civil society, the system of checks and balances, and the lack of external support, we managed to avoid the worst in 2022. But conservative and right-wing demands continue to exist. In order to continue living in a democracy, we need to separate authoritarian intolerance, political violence, and coup-mongering, represented by Jair Bolsonaro, from the conservatism he claims to represent. And the latter must find leaders capable of playing the democratic game.
*Felipe Calabrez is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre de Recherches politiques de Sciences Po-Paris (Cevipof). Author of the book Introduction to political economy: the historical path of a social science (InterSaberes Publishing House).
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