By VINÍCIO CARRILHO MARTINEZ*
From The prince According to Niccolò Machiavelli, politics is always associated with a sense of force, imposition – in the absence of conviction and persuasion
How can we educate for (popular) power if politics has lost its charm? There is another word that rhymes with this one, but I won't say it. In any case, this question remains and one thing is certain: the boring politician who has lost his charm will only find it in his true friends, among the poor, black and oppressed people.
Within this context, it is worth mentioning that the title of the text is the same as that of my next undergraduate course (optional) and there are an infinity of issues that pass through this triad, from the emancipation that interests the poor, black and oppressed (education for power) to what is rotten in the Kingdom of Denmark (Shakespeare in Hamlet).
It is still possible to deal with other variations or developments, such as: politics, domination, decision or otherness, authority, imposition. Since The prince According to Niccolò Machiavelli, politics has always been associated with a sense of strength, imposition – in the absence of conviction and persuasion – and this the ancients called virility. Politics was understood as a masculine attribute, even though women have always done much more politics (as “the noble art of survival”) than dominant men (“phallocracy”). In turn, this “virility” was not always (or almost never) associated with the required “virtues”: they also called it virtù.
However, as an update of meanings, we will call the active policy “rudeness”[I] and which, in turn, deconstructs sympathy: the forces of the extreme right and National Fascism are predictable in this political arena. In other words, what prevails is the imposition (while dominus[ii]) and its decisions are “firm enough” (as the State should be) so that its strength (virility) can never be questioned.
In this case, immediately, without considering many of the other syntonies, we see that we are in a very strange paradox: sympathy, in the etymological dictionary, is the “ability to be with two or more people” and politics, in another very simple definition, alludes to the condition of setting the agenda, calling, and gathering in order to decide for a collective purpose.
So, without much effort from political intelligence, if there is no sympathy, we can ask: how do you do politics?
This is the dilemma that the country seems to be facing: the country has lost its charm, it has no charisma – just like our politics. Compared to the recent past, today, perhaps due to an excess of unresolved resentment, a lack of time and urgency in the face of negative evaluations, or due to the mere imposition of ego, the “nice leaders” of yesteryear are holed up, surrounded by “friends” against their (our?) “enemies”. And so we arrive at another dead end, one that wastes politics in a “friend/enemy relationship” – “to friends, everything; to enemies, the law” (read, rudeness, coldness, truculence).
In a way, it is not difficult to explain how a political leader loses his charisma, that action/vibration or ability to produce “political sympathy”[iii]: the “grace of those who do politics with people, for people”. The difficult part is making the alligator close its big mouth: this expression means that, when the poles move away, especially when pointing to unbearable levels of low support, with the mouth of political enmity increasingly open, it is practically impossible to reverse the process.
The figure of speech of the alligator with its mouth open is very powerful in symbolism and political analysis for two reasons: when the alligator closes its mouth on its prey, there is nothing that can make it open its mouth, except the desire to eat; let's replace the alligator with a crocodile and we arrive at the myth of the State. The first or strongest representation of the State was given by Thomas Hobbes; however, the Renaissance philosopher was referring to a biblical passage (Isaias 27:1[iv]).
To better interact with the animal symbol of power, let us imagine defeating a Nile crocodile, one of the most voracious and strong animals in nature, with Bronze Age spears and arrows (a soft metal): its armor would represent a force superior to the most powerful war tank of today (made of steel and full of countermeasures), comparing the resistance of the armor with the military technology of the time. The result of this association between strength, resistance, and indestructibility would be the State.
Returning to “political sympathy” (or antipathy, depending on how we analyze acceptance and “voting intentions”), let us think about how insurmountable the mountain is that threatens to collapse (or has already collapsed) for those who have lost their charisma: the alligator with its mouth open that is on the lookout.
Without charisma, we could think of a new politics, carried out with care, unquestionable technical ability, rationality, a numerical relationship that is more right than wrong – and this is not the case today. In fact, before we move on, let us emphasize that low sympathy (or high antipathy) is soon associated with prejudice, rancor, rejection, the famous nausea that leads to political prohibition.
A political leader who passed through heaven and Calvary was Benito Mussolini. Precursor of fascist Italy, the Duce he practically reinvented “political charisma” – somewhat in the wake of his compatriot Gaius Julius Caesar, the most renowned Roman general –, reaching the solar heights of right-wing populism, but which ended up upside down in the public square.
With a lot of commercial marketing, in Brazil, we had Fernando Collor de Melo, urged to power with popular support, which ended in a famous impeachment. On a more “technical” level, we saw Fernando Henrique Cardoso – placed in central power by a “party of cadres” and with his “notorious knowledge” – and we saw neoliberalism take its first steps. Later, he was ousted by an arrangement of ideological petitions, leading Lula to his first term, on the threshold of a “mass party”. He left, in his second term, with 80% approval: a milestone for world politics, without a doubt – even more so because he was a metalworker. However, it is important to highlight the sympathy gathered: 80% of friends, if you prefer to put it that way.
Today, without so much sympathy, it is also unable to establish forces and parties of cadres. It is obvious that we are not talking about “revolutionary parties” here.
The PT has long been narrowed down as a “party of power” – and by that I mean that, in association with the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) of 20th century Mexico, it has become an organization that fights (exclusively) for power and to stay in power. However, in this area, what seems obvious is not, in fact, the case. In politics, nothing is quite what it seems.
We just need to think that the parties, the most notable or honest ones (even more so if viewed from the left's perspective), should focus on social change, much more on transformation than on preserving the status quo. Perhaps the increasing rates of loss of sympathy (declining charisma) are due to this, since we do not expect a “left-wing party” to move in the same way, in the same lagoon dominated by the insatiable alligator of the right (or extreme right).
Finally, the burning question returns: how can you gain sympathy without leaving the lagoon of this relentless crocodile?
With all due respect to the puns, borrowed for a more direct understanding, it seems that, without charisma, one no longer pays attention to the fact that “in a lagoon with piranhas, the alligator swims on its back”.
Or, in another hypothesis, could it be that the friends holed up in the castle are not such good friends after all and, at the bottom of the lake, they would already be “giving the piranhas their fill”?
When there is no political sympathy, anything is possible (even probable), because “the leaky boat is taking on a lot of water” and the “give and take” policy does not seem to satisfy all the little rats in the hold of power. This is how the charismatic politician becomes a bogeyman.
As stated at the beginning, the friends of the charismatic politician (simplified as populist) are among the poor, black and oppressed people. In the castle, in the Palace, are the “friends of the jaguar”.
*Vinicio Carrilho Martinez He is a professor at the Department of Education at UFSCar. Author, among other books, of Bolsonarism. Some political-legal and psychosocial aspects (APGIQ). [https://amzn.to/4aBmwH6]
Notes
[I] The first text I will use is the one from the link below, about the political musical chairs that left Nísia Trindade (Minister of Health) standing – at the door of the service. Available here.
02. Looking at the clock is disrespectful and goes against the decorum of the office's liturgy.
[ii] “The law of the strongest”, the law of capital or the law of the sword that dictates the right of life and death.
[iii] People grow old and want peace and quiet – it is a legitimate right. However, they sinfully err in not investing in the renewal of their political leadership.
[iv] This is what the Bible says about Leviathan: “On that day the Lord will punish with his hard, great and strong sword leviathan the swift serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.”
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