By ANDRE LUIZ DE SOUZA & JEFFERSON FERREIRA OF THE BIRTH*

While the right offers moral conservatism and positions itself as a challenger to the system, the left has ended up associating itself with a project that favors socioeconomic conservatism.

In recent years, the electoral growth of the right and far right, especially Bolsonarism, has generated several explanatory hypotheses. One of them, proposed by Alysson Mascaro, addresses the politicization of the Brazilian people by the right, demanding a critical reflection on recent changes in the political scenario. Alysson Mascaro argues that, in recent decades, the population's political awareness has been directed by a conservative bias, influenced by economic and political crises and media manipulation, in addition to the strategic use of social media.

This analysis resonates with the works of theorists such as Antonio Gramsci and Jürgen Habermas. In prison notebooks (1929-1935), Antonio Gramsci highlighted the role of cultural hegemony in the formation of political consciousness. Jürgen Habermas, in Structural change in the public sphere (1962), criticizes the manipulation of public opinion, arguing that the media can direct political debate in a biased manner. In this context, the people, in search of answers to their frustrations, were politicized by conservative values, consolidating the existing power structures, as also discussed by Alysson Mascaro in his works State and political form (2013) and crisis and coup (2018)

The political and economic crisis that followed the 2013 protests generated strong polarization and paved the way for the growth of conservative discourses. This moment of crisis was a turning point, in which sectors of society that were initially critical of the system were gradually captured by right-wing narratives. The social and institutional malaise generated by the crisis created fertile ground for conservative forces to fill the political vacuum, presenting themselves as viable alternatives.

Conservative discourses, often simplistic, appealed to feelings of insecurity, frustration and instability. Instead of in-depth analyses of the structural causes of crises, the solutions offered were based on promises of order, economic recovery and the fight against corruption. In this context, the right wing appropriated popular discontent and channeled it into its agendas, as Alysson Mascaro analyzes in crisis and coup (2018), where he describes how the right constructed a discourse of national rescue after the 2016 crisis and the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff.

This rise of the right was largely reinforced by mechanisms of ideological control and manipulation of public opinion. As Gramsci argues, cultural hegemony is the main instrument through which elites secure their position of power by controlling the dominant ideas in society. In this case, the right was successful in capturing popular frustrations and transforming them into an ideological consensus favorable to its conservative policies. This phenomenon manifested itself in the discourse that the solution to the crisis lay in the restoration of traditional values ​​and in the distrust of progressive policies.

Furthermore, the role of the media and social networks was central to the dissemination of these ideas. Jürgen Habermas discusses how the public sphere, which should be a space for inclusive and rational debate, was captured by private interests that manipulate public opinion. In Brazil, both traditional media and new digital platforms were widely used to spread simplified narratives, favoring the right and often appealing to fear and misinformation. This helped to build a collective imagination in which the conservative shift was seen as the solution to the crises, while the left and social movements became the internal enemies.

The phenomenon of right-wing politicization, as Alysson Mascaro argues, was not a spontaneous process, but the result of a combination of structural and ideological factors. The economic and political crisis, combined with conservative cultural hegemony and the strategic use of the media, created a scenario in which people, in search of answers, were directed towards a politicization that perpetuates inequalities and reinforces power structures.

While this analysis is valuable, it falls short in not emphasizing the responsibility of left-wing organizations in this process. In fact, the leaders of the institutional left, instead of confronting this trend, have chosen to maintain the status quo. Defending an unequal order and its institutions, they left aside the construction of a program of social transformation and structural criticism.

While the right offers moral conservatism and positions itself as a challenger to the system, the left has ended up associating itself with a project that favors socioeconomic conservatism; in some cases diverting the focus to debates about values ​​and morals, in others adopting positions and discourses in certain elections, as was the case of Lúdio Cabral (candidate for mayor for the PT in Cuiabá-MT).[I]

The abandonment of class-based policies also contributed to the weakening of the left.[ii] As Tiaraju Pablo D'Andrea, coordinator of the CEP (Center for Peripheral Studies), warned in an interview with the portal UOL: “There was a left-wing hegemony in the outskirts when public policies were more effective in these territories — when there was a world where labor rights made more sense, when the CLT was extended. In this world, the left’s discourse made more sense.”[iii]

The struggle for recognition is of undeniable importance, but it cannot survive without the struggle for redistribution. Therefore, it is necessary to emphasize that the fragmentation and flexibilization of the world of work does not eliminate class contradictions, whose current context warns of the intensification of precarious work and the degradation of the living conditions of the working class.

Finally, the left has been distancing itself from popular culture, while the right has recruited leaders from movements such as funk, organized fan groups, amateur football, neighborhood associations, etc.

Given this scenario, the results of the 2024 Municipal Elections are illustrative. The electorate grew by 5,4% compared to 2020, while valid votes increased by 9,6%, partly due to the reduction in abstention and blank and invalid votes. This data provides us with an initial overview for analyzing the results. Although the advance of conservative and right-wing parties in several Brazilian cities is evident, it is crucial to analyze the numbers to understand the trends, see Table 1:

Left-wing and associated parties, together, gained almost 1 million votes in the 2024 elections compared to 2020. However, the growth (4,5%) was lower than the increase in the electorate (5,4%) and the growth in valid votes (9,6%). Thus, the share of left-wing parties in the total valid votes fell from 22% in 2020 to 21% in 2024. This mild relative decline, however, resulted in the loss of 557 council seats.

There is a movement that is consistent with the direction of the post-2015 electoral reforms: the strengthening of the largest parties. In this sense, the PT grew to the point of neutralizing the reduction of the other parties of the Brazilian Federation of Hope (PCdoB and PV). The PSB, with its great ideological “breadth” (or flexibility), had a greater increase in votes than the combined losses of the left-wing parties or parties associated with parties outside the Brazilian Federation of Hope.

However, the situation is different for elected councilors. Although the PT, PSB and Rede balanced the losses of the PCdoB, PSOL and Rede itself, the PDT's decline (loss of 927 seats) was only partially offset (the bloc as a whole, including the PDT, lost 557).

The PDT’s situation is particularly complex. The party lost votes and council members, even with access to a significant amount of resources from the party fund, the electoral fund, and individual parliamentary amendments (RP6), including the so-called “PIX amendments”. One possible explanation for this negative performance is the party’s erratic ideological stance, especially due to the disagreement between Ciro Gomes’ group and PDT members close to the PT. In certain cases, PDT leaders even supported Bolsonaro candidates, prompting a strong public reaction from Carlos Lupi (Minister of Labor and licensed president of the party).

It is necessary to evaluate the growth of the other captions, let's look at table 2:

One obvious conclusion is that the six most voted parties are right-wing or center-right, not necessarily pro-Bolsonaro. Among them, only União Brasil received fewer votes than in 2020. In those elections, before the merger that created the party, the PSL still ran against many candidates associated with then-president Jair Bolsonaro and his allies, even though the split between them was already underway. Conversely, the PL consolidated itself as the party of Jair Bolsonaro and his main leaders, which may help explain its growth.

These ties to Bolsonarism can never be disconnected from access to resources. The PL is the party with the most representation in Congress and, therefore, the most access to party and electoral funds, as well as to individual amendments RP6 (including Pix amendments). In other words, ideology matters, but it cannot be a variable isolated from institutional conditions (money, capillarity, campaign structure, etc.). To demonstrate this argument, let us look at Table 3:

The same movement highlighted in relation to the PT and the PSB occurred on the right: the migration of votes to the largest parties. However, the right managed to advance along with the growth of the electorate, attracting the majority of additional valid votes, compared to 2020. In numbers: the six most voted parties gained around 15 million votes, the other eighteen parties lost 6,4 million. But why is this process of concentration of votes in the largest parties a stronger fact than simply the growth of the right?

Let us return to the sociologist Tiaraju Pablo D'Andrea: “When we make a reduced analysis that the left is something external to the periphery, we fall into the error of saying that the left is dead. It is not true that it has nothing to say to the peripheries. Perhaps those who have nothing to say are an intellectualized middle class whose propositions have run out […] There are many unionized people in the peripheries, who organize themselves through the world of work, who claim to be left-wing. There are many people who are scattered and who also have a feeling that the left is more welcoming of their proposition for the world.”[iv]

But then, how can we understand the results?

There is a strong presence of neo-Pentecostal churches in the outskirts of the city, which help the population when they are in need. After the material issue, comes the conservative discourse – anti-left, anti-family, patriarchal, anti-feminist […] The right knows how to operate social networks better and there are many right-wing people in Brazil who receive funding from abroad to increase their reach in the country.[v]

Note that it is not possible to dissociate the politicization of the left from the ability to contribute resources – which is undoubtedly greater in right-wing parties. This is reflected in the asymmetry of competitive conditions between the parties. To complete the picture, of the left, center-left and their allies, four did not elect any city council members, together obtaining only around 60 thousand votes. In contrast, the smallest right-wing or center-right party won 97 seats in the City Councils, and all parties in this spectrum elected at least one mayor, with the one with the fewest votes obtaining more than 660 thousand votes.

In other words, only seven left-wing, center-left and their associates are competitive against 18 right-wing and far-right parties. This panorama helps to understand why the left and its allies won only 746 city halls out of the 5.544 defined in the first round (13,5%). This data is better contextualized when we add the number of candidacies: “[…] of the 8.089 candidacies launched by the five main parties in the country, only 82,54% of them were from right-wing or center-right parties.” In the same article that presents this number, the researcher from Ipespe Analytics, Vinícius Alves, highlights that, historically, right-wing parties have more advantage in municipal elections than left-wing parties.[vi]

It is obvious that the relative loss of left-wing parties suggests an analysis of the successes of the right in the municipal elections. However, it is important to consider that two movements are occurring simultaneously: one of an institutional nature and the other of an ideological nature.

At the institutional level, the electoral reforms implemented since 2015 aimed to strengthen the larger parties, with measures such as the performance clause, the threshold clause and new criteria for access to electoral and party funds. This disparity was widened by changes in the rules for mandatory amendments since 2019. The secret budget and individual amendments drained resources from the federal Executive, limiting its ability to implement public policies and carry out works in municipalities, while at the same time increasing the political capital of parliamentarians, who were able to distribute these resources in exchange for support.

This movement strengthened the larger parties, whose greater number of parliamentarians expanded their reach. In addition, the use of individual amendments, especially with the opacity of the so-called “Pix” amendments, raised questions about the lack of transparency and the greater possibility of political use of resources, with fewer requirements for impartiality.

On an ideological level, Alysson Mascaro observes that the politicization of the right occurred in a scenario of exhaustion and crisis of the left-wing project in Brazil, aggravated by the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2016. Dilma Rousseff's government was marked by political and economic turbulence, associated with a strong media campaign of delegitimization, which caused a large part of the population to see the left as ineffective or corrupt.

Traditionally associated with the defense of social rights and redistributive policies, the left saw its capacity for political articulation weakened, creating space for the right to capitalize on popular dissatisfaction.

In this political vacuum, the right knew how to exploit collective resentment, consolidating a narrative of opposition to establishment political. Paradoxically, this narrative, although it presented itself as a rupture with the traditional system, often defended the interests of conservative and business sectors, which historically control the power structures. This discourse mobilized broad sectors of society, combining criticism of the previous government with the promise of a moral restoration and economic order.

As Alysson Mascaro points out, this politicization on the right is associated with the strengthening of authoritarian, antidemocratic and exclusionary discourses. Instead of promoting popular participation and social inclusion, the political awareness that emerged in this process reinforces inequalities and delegitimizes issues related to human rights, plurality and social justice.

This form of politicization often relies on simplistic and punitive solutions that see repression and conservatism as the answers to social problems. Alysson Mascaro criticizes this trend as a setback for popular emancipation, since the “right-wing consciousness” acquired by the people does not promote critical autonomy or the construction of a more just society, but rather reaffirms the domination of already privileged groups and limits the space for plural and inclusive debate.

Politicization by the right, therefore, should not be seen as a spontaneous or natural process, but as the result of structural forces that have shaped collective perception and channeled popular demands towards political projects that preserve inequalities and reinforce status quo. This phenomenon refers to Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony, which explains how elites manage to shape the common sense of the masses to maintain their domination. The right, by presenting itself as the solution to the crisis, has consolidated a political hegemony that makes it difficult to organize popular alternatives.

In this sense, the politicization of the right must be understood as part of a broader movement that reaffirms an exclusionary model of society, where the maintenance of inequalities is justified by discourses of order, security and morality.

* André Luiz de Souza holds a PhD in sociology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).

*Jefferson Ferreira do Nascimento it's dPhD in political science from the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) and professor at the Federal Institute of São Paulo (IFSP).

References

GRAMSCI, Antonio. prison notebooks, volume 3: Machiavelli, notes on the State and politics. Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian Civilization, 2017.

HABERMAS, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1962, 1994.

KATZ, Claudio. Neoliberalism, neodevelopmentalism, socialism. New York: Routledge.

MAIR, Peter. Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London: Verso, 2013.

MASCARO, Alysson Leandro. crisis and coup. New York: Routledge, 2018.

MASCARO, Alysson Leandro. State and political form. New York: Routledge, 2013. 

SAAD FILHO, Alfredo & MORAIS, Lecio. Brazil: Neoliberalism versus Democracy. Sao Paulo: Boitempo, 2018.

WOOD, Ellen M. The Retreat from Class: a new “true” socialism. London / New York: Verso, 1998.

Notes

[I] Two books delve into this issue, see Katz (2016) and Saad Filho & Morais (2018)

[ii] This criticism is not exactly new. Ellen Meiksins Wood won the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize in 1986 making this criticism of the left (by the left). See Wood (1998).

[iii] See the article in https://noticias.uol.com.br/eleicoes/2024/10/20/entrevista-sociologo-periferias-sao-paulo-eleicoes.htm

[iv] See the article in https://noticias.uol.com.br/eleicoes/2024/10/20/entrevista-sociologo-periferias-sao-paulo-eleicoes.htm

[v] Idem

[vi] See the article: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/articles/cqjrgd2v4jxo

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