- Jul 9, 2007
- 12,780
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I don't believe the view points are backward. I just believe their rubbish. I'm not a social Darwinist so don't really believe in 'backward'. Your focusing on the politics of Bolsonoros LGBT stuff (a massive issue in Brazil btw, not a small one, I mean almost 10% of Brazil is lgbt, one of the highest rates in the world) and those kind of issues. Now we will ignore that the context of these issues, such as gender and sexuality are often life and death issues in Brazil. It's not soft Identity politics of here. So these issues are of a different context and yes are part of the reason Bolsonaro is one of the most hated and decisive politicians in Brazil.I liked you post.
Even though I disagree in some parts. I liked it because this is exactly the type of conversation and debate that should be generated from such a topic - so kudos to you friend.
The reason why I disagree is because you're still using your own perspective on their viewpoints being backwards. I don't believe at all that the people who support Bolsonaro suffer from a lack of education or hold backwards views. They simply have a very different focus to what someone in our shoes would have.
When you come from a society where extreme poverty, extreme violence and crime and fantastic (not in a good way) disparity between rich and poor your daily grind will be about making sure your kids don't go hungry or that they have a roof over their head and that they are safe. LGBTQ rights would be considered a privilege in such circumstances. Any person who is going to give you a fighting chance is going to get your support. It's not backwards it's actually the best evolutionary choice.
We in the UK have been very lucky to live in a country where the level of relative poverty is low and where their are safeguards in place to stop people falling through the net at the same time people who do well are still able to live a lifestyle of their choosing to compliment their own success. We debate issues such as LGBTQ rights, animal rights, environment waste and other civic freedoms etc. With the cost of living crisis becoming worse and people (including middle income families) starting to struggle to make ends meet I can make a prediction that these rights issues that we have been discussing will very quickly disappear from public discourse and we'll be talking about poverty, helping families and the elderly survive the winter. We'll probably find a scapegoat like bankers or the energy companies and get angry at their profits and push the government to stop them from sucking us dry of every loose change we have. Our priorities will change and it won't be because we're backwards or uneducated, it will be because we're trying to survive.
But we will talk about what you are saying, which is a problem. Because materialistically Bolsonaro is not a candidate who is particularly interested in tackling poverty.
We need to be careful when discussing non western countries because western prospectives often make it seem like most people are struggling to live outside Europe, while Europe everything is fine and that's just not true. 26% of Brazil is below the poverty line, compare that with 18% in the UK (the grind is real in the UK too, I've been there). It's true that Brazil has more extreme poverty, but we are not talking about a particularly poor country, but a middling economy. More or less aligned with Turkey and Servia. Brazils social issues, again, are complicated and not just about money. But gangs and machismo are massive parts of a country with real problems with violence as well as corruption.
One of the main reasons Bolsonaro won was a curroption scandal that implicated most of the political class. Bolsonaro framed himself as something different. He also won because of Christian and anti LGBT and women hating. Because these aren't issues that are ignored in Brazil as insignificant but issues that are widely talked about.
Bolsonaro, though isn't a candidate who stood for trying to help poor people, or anything of the like. I mean Bolsonaro has publically stated that he believes a solution to poverty is to make poor people infertile. Bolsonaro supports rich and middle class Brazilians and that is the primary base of his support as the neoliberal candidate. The ability for Bolsonaro to gain some support in lower classes (but never the majority) is because of his religious infused anti women, anti indigenous people, anti LGBT.
Because Bolsonaro is losing big time he has actually introduced a lot of anti poverty measures recently to try and gain back his flailing support from lower income communities.
But my point is this. You paint Lucas' position has something understandable in the Brazil context, or poor country. But Lucas' support of bolsonaro is understandable because Lucas is a rich Brazilian, and bolsonaro looks after his economic interest. Your turning it that Brazilians don't care about cultural issues but instead are materialists (we could do with more, though issues of gender and sexuality are intrinsically linked to materialist views) but if they are materialists more poorer people wouldn't vote Bolsonaro because he unapologetically doesn't represent them.
I just don't think what you are creating is, firstly accurate to how politics is constructed in Brazil, and certainly not why people voted for Bolsonaro.