Anti-intellectual violence from the middle class sustains Bolsonarism, says historian.
Journalist and historian Christian Schwartz argues that the anti-intellectual trait that characterizes the Brazilian middle class is the political element that sustains Bolsonarism; he challenges the thesis of an identity-based split in the electorate and asserts that Jair Bolsonaro won the elections by uniting middle-class groups who, like politicians, see education as something ornamental or pragmatic.
247 - Journalist and historian Christian Schwartz argues that the anti-intellectual trait that characterizes the Brazilian middle class is the political element that sustains Bolsonarism. He challenges the thesis of an identity-based split in the electorate and asserts that Jair Bolsonaro won the elections by uniting middle-class groups who, like politicians, see education as something ornamental or pragmatic.
The historian, in article published in the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, it initially highlights: "hThere is a question that, if answered in all its complexity, has the potential to illuminate much of what has happened in Brazilian politics recently. It is this: by what means (or devilishly) did the 'He doesn't represent me' of the June 2013 protests quickly become the 'Myth! Myth!' that animates Jair Bolsonaro's permanent rally—and seems to be a kind of battle cry of this tribal government? In a recent text, journalist and writer Eliane Brum put forward the thesis that, according to her, for the first time in Brazilian history, the president is an "average man." The argument progresses in three stages.
He continues: "First, he exposes what would be a contrast: unlike all his predecessors in office (the text curiously remains silent about the only female predecessor, not even once mentioned), Bolsonaro would lack exceptionality. 'Jair Bolsonaro is the man who neither belongs to the elites nor has done anything exceptional. This average man represents a broad layer of Brazilians,' writes the journalist." In the next two stages, he reaffirms the standard explanation of our so-called progressive intellectuals for the phenomenon, this one unprecedented, of a far-right president."
And he adds: "It begins with the assertion that 'the position of the heterosexual man at the top of the hierarchy has never been so questioned as in recent years'; it then argues that the governments prior to that of interim president Michel Temer had advanced, to an unprecedented degree, gender, class and, especially, race rights. 'The recognition of these rights and the expansion of access for black people to spaces previously reserved for white people had a great impact on the electoral result and also on anti-PT sentiment,' reflects Brum."