Moral panic, evangelical fury and a culture war: The Bolsonaro formula threatens Lula’s re-election bid

Brasilia, 2016: Congressman Jair Messias Bolsonaro votes in favor of impeaching left-wing President Dilma Rousseff. And he dedicates his vote to the military officer who tortured her during the dictatorship (1964-1985), when she was a guerrilla fighter.

That gesture sparked outrage, but also gave him notoriety. Two years later, Bolsonaro — who had served as a backbencher in the Chamber of Deputies for three decades, after being asked to leave the Army for disciplinary reasons — achieved a resounding victory in Brazil’s presidential elections. He capitalized on the frustration and anger felt by the population, convincing his compatriots that he would lead the battle to bury traditional politics and end the corruption that has corroded the system since colonial times. He positioned himself as the champion of culture wars against feminism, racial minorities and the environment. His path to victory was paved by the imprisonment of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the eve of the elections. Lula, Dilma Rousseff’s predecessor, had served as president of Brazil from 2003 until 2011.

Two terms later, the roles have been reversed. Bolsonaro, 71, is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest. And Lula, 80, is the president. He won the 2022 elections (defeating Bolsonaro) and is now focused on securing a fourth term. He’s facing the son of his nemesis: Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, a pale imitation of his father who lacks his charisma.

Brazil will hold elections on Sunday, October 4. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, a runoff will be held on October 25.

Anyone who has closely observed the past eight years in Brazil will have noticed that the society is exhausted, apathetic and resigned to its fate. The enthusiasm that once electrified crowds at political rallies has evaporated. The incipient social division — which was slowly tearing apart this conciliatory nation — has transformed into full-blown polarization. There are now, effectively, two Brazils.

The pendulum swings back and forth between different ends of the political spectrum, but life isn’t substantially improving. Structural problems persist. The same old faces are still in power, while corruption dominates the news. And, once again, many Brazilians will be voting against a candidate, rather than in favor of a vision for the country.

How can it be explained that another Bolsonaro — and such a weak candidate, at that — manages to garner the level of support that the polls indicate? For weeks, the surveys have presented a stable picture: Lula, the leader of a united left that’s allied with certain parties from the center-right, is tied with Bolsonaro Jr., the strongest candidate amidst a divided right.

It’s unlikely (although not totally out of the question) that the outcome will be decided in the first round. Bolsonaro’s eldest son seriously threatens the re-election bid of the 21st century’s most influential politician in Brazil and wider Latin America. Lula remains a bastion (along with Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum) against the Trumpist-conservative wave sweeping across the continent.

His father’s designated successor, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro has spent half of his life in politics (just like his brothers). The far-right former president ignored the establishment of the Liberal Party when it came to selecting a presidential candidate — they preferred someone without the Bolsonaro name, as the family is less palatable to the moderate electorate. And, to make matters even more complicated, Senator Bolsonaro is under investigation for corruption and money laundering — and this isn’t even the first time that he’s been in the crosshairs of the courts.

Since Jair Bolsonaro’s 2018 victory, which may have seemed circumstantial, simply a product of the anti-establishment wave surrounding Donald Trump’s first presidency, the Bolsonaro clan has built an identity that resonates, to varying degrees, with about half of Brazil’s population.

From the outset, Bolsonaro’s movement gave political substance to a latent reality. David Magalhães, a researcher at the Observatório da Extrema Direita (Observatory of the Extreme Right), points out that, with the election of Bolsonaro, the aspirations of a radical right wing (that already existed) entered the public debate. Magalhães describes a violent, reactionary form of populism — the legacy of a patriarchal society marked by military authoritarianism and a culture of slavery. The supporters of this movement are the people who never miss a rally: they’re always waving the Brazilian flag and wearing the national soccer team’s jersey. Some of them are members of the fanatical minority who accompanied the former president, along with handfuls of high-ranking military officers, in the coup plot to remain in power after the 2022 defeat to Lula.

Mercia Alves, a political anthropologist at the Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP), notes that “Bolsonaro didn’t create moral conservatism. He didn’t encourage [big groups] of evangelicals to get into politics, nor did he create the Brazilian far right. What he did do was very effectively rally these elements around a single candidacy.”

Bolsonaro Sr. placed moral issues — abortion, drugs and so-called “gender ideology” — at the center of his rhetoric. Thereafter, elections would no longer revolve around the economy or security: he elevated the political battle to the status of a divine mission to defeat evil. A self-proclaimed “instrument of God,” he managed to capitalize on the great social transformation that the growth of evangelical churches has brought about in Brazil. From remote Amazonian villages to the wealthiest cities in the south, passing through Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, pastors are displacing Catholic priests.

This belief system has especially resonated among the working classes in the urban peripheries. A large part of this poor evangelical congregation — which, until 2010, had favored Lula’s Workers’ Party over the more elitist, traditional right — identified with Bolsonaro’s discourse.

The banner of “God, country, family and freedom” resonates in these neighborhoods, where deprivation abounds and opportunities are scarce. The Brazilians who struggle so hard to feed their children no longer vote with their wallets, but based on their values.

The leaders of many evangelical churches have embraced a narrative that’s built on fallacies. They transfer the struggle of good versus evil to politics, in order to stir up moral panic with a narrative about an imaginary left. “Lula threatens our religious freedom; he threatens the safety of our children, he threatens our families and he represents the degeneration of our moral values,” is essentially the talking point, according to Alves, the political anthropologist. It doesn’t seem to matter that successive Workers’ Party administrations have defended freedom of worship, or have avoided the abortion debate entirely.

The traditionalist message is very powerful, particularly when it comes from the leaders of a church that transforms lives with its promises of salvation and solutions to everyday problems. And the driving force of social change is embodied by the poor, Black female voter. For her, religious community offers a more effective safety net than the state. She is the kind of voter whose husband hasn’t abused her since he quit drinking with the support of his church group; who has learned to read using Scriptures; and who feels that her children’s guitar lessons (also offered by the church) are a safe alternative to streets, where crime offers easy money and status.

Michelle Bolsonaro — the patriarch’s wife, an evangelical Christian and former first lady now aspiring to high political office — is a major asset with this audience. This is thanks to the conservative brand of female empowerment that she preaches, using biblical parables and Instagram videos.

Flávio — an evangelical Christian, despite his father’s Catholicism — grew up surrounded by military families. He studied law and, after 16 years as a city councilman in Rio de Janeiro, reached the Senate. And even though his presidential campaign revolves around his father’s figure and embraces much of the far-right agenda, the Liberal Party candidate is the least ideological of the sons. He doesn’t share his father’s aggressiveness or crudeness. He presents himself as a moderate Bolsonaro, boasting that he was vaccinated during the pandemic and that his wife and daughters have “re-educated him.” Flávio knows full well that his father’s blatant machismo alienates female voters.

Unlike his brothers, he maintains a fluid dialogue with the more moderate parties that dominate the center-right and have traditionally held the balance of power in Brazil. But, reflecting his initial weakness, no party agreed to form an alliance with him.

To almost everyone’s surprise, Flávio Bolsonaro quickly inherited his father’s electoral capital, but this support is tinged with resignation, even among those who have found meaning in their lives within the Bolsonaro universe.

This past September 7 — Brazil’s Independence Day — it was gray, rainy and cold in São Paulo, one of those days when Brazilians don’t venture out. However, a right-wing rally was being held. Sonia Jezabel Monteiro, 75, a retired bank employee, was there, standing firm and bundled up. “Is Flávio the solution? Well, he’s the only option we have,” she confessed, echoing other demonstrators who had come out to support the candidate. “The first choice, of course, is his father… the leader who came to bring back great Western values,” she explained.

But what she really wanted to talk about was the issue of the day. And that’s when she launched into one of the right’s trademark tirades against the Supreme Federal Court and Justice Alexandre de Moraes, Bolsonaro’s nemesis (and the embodiment of evil, alongside Lula, of course). “We are slaves to a Supreme Court that convicts and then exonerates presidents. Look at the Master case: they should have removed everyone involved — because they’re either criminals or accomplices — and appointed people who respect the Constitution.”

The case she’s referring to is a major corruption scandal involving a Brazilian bank (Banco Master) that left an estimated $10 billion financial hole after the institution was liquidated. The Supreme Court is investigating numerous high-profile individuals in the Ponzi-like scam, including Bolsonaro’s son. The investigation has also placed Justice Moraes (who, along with other justices, sentenced Jair Bolsonaro to prison) under suspicion of protecting the banker accused of fraud. Half of the judges sitting on Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court have been implicated in the case.

Alves, the political anthropologist, warns that the support from Bolsonaro’s voters isn’t unconditional. The contempt for the suffering of others displayed by Bolsonaro Sr. in his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic hurt them. Many also detest guns (Flávio no longer promotes them) and reject toxic rhetoric, while suspicions of corruption fuel their doubts. Still, they see the Bolsonaros as the only ones capable of defeating the common enemy: Lula, Lucifer incarnate.

Moralistic discourse has found fertile ground in Brazil, because attachment to faith and family stand out among the few common traits shared by the local population — one of the most diverse and unequal in the world. Still, the unbridled revelry of Carnival, the relaxed sexual morality and the absolute naturalness with which Brazilians embrace a thousand informal family structures all project an image that can overshadow their deep-seated conservatism.

Every time the left has governed Brazil, the presidents have been deposed by a military coup or by Congress. Otherwise, they’ve been imprisoned after implementing labor, tax and agrarian reforms, creating the Truth Commission to investigate the dictatorship, or redistributing wealth.

Politics in Brazil unfolds at the pace of a soap opera, with convoluted plots spanning several episodes. Today’s heroes are tomorrow’s villains; there are betrayals, plot twists and heavy doses of anticipation, fueled by the media-political-judicial universe. The shows goes on until the scandal that will change everything (or nothing) erupts (or doesn’t). And then, everyone moves on to the next season.

For weeks now, the idea has been circulating that some bombshell revelation could decide the presidential election in the final stretch.

While Lula is suffering from waning popularity, he represents the only hope for progressives, minorities and those who still lack even the most basic necessities. However, it’s very common for a Brazilian who was born poor, received social assistance, emigrated and worked hard – making big sacrifices to achieve a minimum standard of living – to speak ill of Lula. They may have voted for him two decades ago, when he embodied change… but now, they criticize their “lazy cousins” who “don’t need to work,” thanks to the subsidies paid for by everyone else.

This is another ingredient in Bolsonaro’s political identity: the narrative in favor of individualism and meritocracy. Along with the idea that the state gets in the way of everything, these are all central elements of the “prosperity gospel” preached by neo-Pentecostal pastors in churches, on social media and through powerful television networks. Entrepreneurs are multiplying in Brazil, while the most successful ones boast about being their own bosses and the freedom they enjoy.

Every time a new legal accusation or scandal emerged involving the Bolsonaros, the most militant members of the left hoped that it would be the final blow — the one that would bury the clan. But countless predictions haven’t panned out, with the political corpse being resurrected time and again. When the patriarch was disqualified from holding office and sentenced to 27 years in prison for leading a coup attempt, those who study the Bolsonaro universe warned that his well-consolidated political movement would outlive its creator.

The fact that Judge Moraes, who led the legal battle to bring Bolsonaro and the other coup plotters to justice, has now gone from savior of democracy to being suspected of corruption only increases the deep-seated distrust that Brazilians have for democratic institutions. And it fuels the victimhood narrative that the Bolsonaros have exploited since their father was stabbed at a campaign rally back in 2018.

Magalhães, from the Observatory of the Extreme Right, explains that these suspicions “fuel the idea that [Jair Bolsonaro is a martyr]; the victim of a system that removed [him] from the electoral arena.”

The former president is currently serving his sentence under house arrest, at his home in Brasília. He has entrusted his eldest son with completing the mission. If Flávio defeats Lula, the priority is to grant amnesty to the family patriarch and bring Brazil into the diplomatic-military alliance that Trump is promoting in Latin America.

Translated by Avik Jain Chatlani

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