By CAIQUE CARVALHO*

The path that the Brazilian right has paved in recent years has been that of a moralizing debate on the agendas of social minorities voiced by the left.

How many times have we seen, at the 60th minute of the second half, those terrifying statistics stating 70, XNUMX% possession for that slow team with horizontal passes? In a game with few thrills and few risks, it is the team that seems to have control of the field. However, when least expected... a goal. A goal by the team that knew the right path and took the risk at the right time. At least in football, we know this: possession of the ball does not win games. However, political tactics are different, and at least in them, having the ball is an extremely important factor. I will leave aside the football metaphor, which I will return to a little later, to break down some elements of the current state of affairs that we are experiencing here in the tropics.

The path that the Brazilian right has paved in recent years has been one of moralizing debate on the issues of social minorities voiced by the left. By absorbing them, it has rearticulated them in a negative way, centering national problems on others – blacks, indigenous people, gays, women, etc. – It has been sufficiently discussed how this modus operandi is not limited to Brazil, as it is an international movement whose strategy is to shift structural problems from the economic, political and cultural spheres to the moral sphere. The problems then begin to be discussed through agendas driven by racism, sexism and LGBTphobia: unemployment is a problem for migrants or the Bolsa Família; corruption is a degeneration centered on left-wing parties in the media; diversity is an imposition of behavioral norms on children and young people.

When Donald Trump shouts a America great again, we know perfectly well what it is about: it is an imagination that stimulates the desire for economic revival and job security, amalgamated with a racially homogeneous country and hierarchically structured in inequalities of various levels. Meanwhile, “Brazil above all and God above all”, which has been repeated as a farce in our history, promotes the same movement.

Brazil has never been as big as the United States, but “it has always been Brazilian and Christian,” at least that is what the ideologues of the Brazilian right think. Although we do not have a migration dilemma in this country like the nations at the center of capitalism, we have historical frictions that erase the green and yellow flag and parody the national anthem, turning it into a comical piece of a non-existent country. I am talking about quilombolas and riverside dwellers, Yanomamis and Pataxós, blacks and Candomblé practitioners, among so many other forms of existence present on the fringes of our society. As for “God above all,” there is no need to elaborate, given the clarity of its falseness.

In this context, the latest elections demonstrate that there is a gradual shift of the population – crushed by the current capitalist social structure that demands more work and imposes fewer rights – towards neoliberal agendas and discourses. A society under such tension needs to find solutions, which have been provided by the right: entrepreneurship linked to the moralization of politics. It is no coincidence that Pablo Marçal repeatedly repeated “prosperity” – a term linked to versions of neo-Pentecostalism – as the purpose of entrepreneurial practice.

However, the right-wing paths lead the working class nowhere, except down a dead end, and they know it. The strategy, however, is well-planned. Neoliberal capitalism proposes the dynamiting of society – let us recall Margaret Thatcher's iconic speech, for whom there were only individuals and families – and, once collective bonds are weakened, the social rights that have been achieved are attacked.

The neoliberal State – distinct from the ideological bravado that disguises it with the mask of the mythical minimal State – is large, and its actions are mobilized by the ruling class to guarantee social order (intensification of security and coercion practices) and the exploitation of labor – administrative, social security, labor reforms, etc. – while at the same time functioning as a driver of the profits of the ruling class, based on the maintenance of exorbitant interest rates and tax incentives.

Once the stress of rising unemployment and violence has been reached, the immediate agendas already disseminated in common sense – mainly by the mainstream media – and voiced by right-wing politicians are articulated as a miraculous solution: unemployment? Entrepreneurship. Violence? Death penalty, prison. The fact is that these policies tend to generate a cycle of social tension, in which the problems they promise to solve are, in fact, intensified.

Thus, each turn of the cycle paves the way for proposals mobilized by the right, which are increasingly exorbitant and ineffective (Pablo Marçal spoke, for example, of changing mentalities to face problems such as poverty and hunger). In this scenario, the left is cornered, having to defend itself from neoliberal agendas that are aggressive towards the population and from fake news, in a reactive position close to the team that tries to get out of the opponent's high marking line.

The rupture of a cyclical notion, therefore progressively and regressively evolving, can only occur through social mobilization. We are the actors of our history, as Marx said, and to exempt ourselves from it means to allow ourselves to be carried away by those who act in it. This is the meaning of the provocation made by Vladimir Safatle about the death of the left. The 6x1 scale agenda, rather than contesting the thesis, confirms it. The position we have taken in recent years, of responding to the right's agendas – whether those of stripping away social rights or those moralized – has caused not only the left to regress, but society itself, which has increasingly migrated to the right's camp. The proposal to end the 6x1 scale and reduce the weekly workload therefore bursts onto the scene as a moment of reunion between the left and the people.

After the last municipal elections, there was much talk about the need for the left to speak to audiences that are hostile to it, such as the evangelical community. This proposal includes not only demystifying the fake news perpetrated in recent years (gay kit and closure of churches by the Haddad and Lula governments), as an approach in the scope of discourse.

The 6x1 discussion demonstrates, however, that the strategy to follow to solve the dialogue problem is not that of a performance evangelizing on the part of the left, which would include terms such as “prosperity” and “blessing” in its speeches. The fact is that, through this strategy, we will continue to be more to the left, in the eyes of the electorate, than the right, which has long conjectured neo-Pentecostalism as its political identity.

Worse still: churches will continue to be monopolized by the religious-business groups that control them, transforming the ecclesiastical pulpit into a business counter and its faithful into potential consumers. And even if, in specific circumstances – for example, a close and polarized election – it may seem efficient to shift discourse and politics to the right, this can only work (and is not a safe move) in the short term. In the medium and long term, it actually means a process of intensification of the right by the left, which begins to reiterate its glossary and policies.

The current agenda is unifying because, through the debate on work, it reaches the majority of the population, meaning real gains that gays, blacks, women, but also evangelicals and men, benefit from.^[I] This is the point where we return to possession of the ball; the moment is unique and instructive. The proposal filed by federal deputy Erika Hilton forced the right to play back, in its own field, having to deal with social pressure.

The key point is that we know how much their class interests – hidden in the moralized agendas that they have learned to flaunt to the four winds – conflict with the public that elected them. The pressure on Nikolas Ferreira makes clear, precisely, the inconsistencies of right-wing politics when observed by those below. Such inconsistencies can only be addressed if the left acts to promote radicalized agendas, because such proposals, while meaning an effective improvement in the population's lives, lead the right to conflict with its voters, who are overwhelmingly poor.

This is what we are witnessing: deputies from parties such as PT, PSOL, PCdoB, REDE and PV fully support the proposal, followed by PSB and PDT, with positive rates of 92,8% and 83,3%, respectively. This contrasts with the meager support from parties such as União Brasil, MDB, PP and PL, with the following respective support: 54,2%, 36,3%, 31,8% and 5,3%.^[ii] If we look at the thematic benches, which are predominantly right-wing, such as the evangelical one, we have the following data: of the total of 219 members, 65 signed, making up only 29,6% of the bench.^[iii] The numbers become even more dramatic if we look at the agribusiness parliamentary front, where, out of 251,^[iv] only 38 members (15,1%) have supported the proposal so far.

In this scenario, the right wing seeks to regain control of the ball, and to do so, two main movements emerge on the horizon. The first, for those parties and groups that did not sign the bill, is the dissemination of lies and fake news. For example, part of the untruths spread sought to present the PEC as irresponsible and “non-technical”, such as the cutting of a video of Congresswoman Erika Hilton in an interview with Globonews, indicating that the proposal was made without taking scientific studies into account.^[v]

In addition to the lies about the PEC, there are also apocalyptic futurology, the purpose of which is to spread fear and prevent the population from recognizing the social and labor advances that the project requires. This is why ideas are spread such as the idea that, once approved, informality in the world of work will increase.^[vi] and would destroy jobs.^[vii]

A second movement is the hijacking of the agenda, which can happen through supporters and detractors. Among the detractors, there are those who claim to be against the end of the 6x1 scale, such as Congressman Kim Kataguiri, but refuse to sign and, therefore, negotiate the terms or rewrite the bill for the vote in the Chamber. What the MBL leader is actually seeking is to co-opt popular indignation to reinforce projects that are contrary to the working class, such as, for example, his defense of the implementation of a work model similar to that of the United States, seeking to convince his electoral base that workers would have choices and the possibility of negotiating with their bosses.

Among the deputies who signed and supported the project, the hijacking may come from their demotion, accepting the end of the 6x1 workday, but putting pressure on keeping the exploratory workload in force.

To protect possession of the ball, the left must continue to pressure and reaffirm the need to end the scale and reduce working hours, as proposed in the PEC, in addition to radicalizing new proposals that mobilize and guarantee rights to society, which will increasingly lead the right to friction with part of its voters, exposing its class interests.

*Caique Carvalho is a PhD candidate in social sciences at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA).

Notes

^[I] This should not be understood as a proposal to abandon bills and political debates that specifically target social minorities, but rather to articulate both actions, which are complementary to each other.

^[ii] The list published on 15/11/2024 by CNN was used to survey support. Available at:

^[iii] Members of the evangelical bench can be reached at the following electronic address:

^[iv]  Members of the agribusiness caucus can be reached at the following electronic address: .

^[v] To learn more, see the article by Clarissa Pacheco in Estadão. Available at: .

^[vi] Available at:

^[vii] Disponível em: <https://oglobo.globo.com/economia/noticia/2024/11/16/mudar-escala-6×1-destruiria-quantidade-de-emprego-monumental-diz-sociologo-jose-pastore.ghtml>

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