THE SIGNS OF CRISIS IN BOLSONARISTA POLITICAL IMAGINATION (2014-2022)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the signs of crisis that constitute the bolsonarista political imagination. I analyze interviews, pronouncements, posts on digital media and other public manifestations made by the political agents who form what Angela Alonso has called the “bolsonarista moral community”. I am inspired by the concept of “crisis” proposed by the German historian Reinhart Koselleck and the category of “political imagination” formulated by the Brazilian political scientist Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos. I begin the investigation in the first half of 2014, when Jair Bolsonaro became a media phenomenon on the internet. I conclude the study in December 2022, at the end of the Bolsonaro administration, when, together with his allies, the then president was plotting a coup d’état to try to reverse the result of the presidential elections won by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The text is organized into four parts, dedicated to each of the signs of crisis on which I believe Bolsonaro’s political imagination is based. First, I examine the sign of the crisis as the total corruption of Brazilian society. Next, I focus on the sign of the crisis of representative democracy. Next, I analyze the sign of the economic crisis. Finally, I look at the sign of the public security crisis.