The propagandists of hate: Bolsonarism-rooted in action

Abstract

This article seeks to clarify the meanings and recurrent patterns of Bolsonarist-rooted agitation throughout the 2018 general elections, as well as the political affections mobilized in their victorious political propaganda. We undertook a survey of the posts issued by 31 of the main Bolsonarist opinion leaders and digital influencers on their official Facebook pages and YouTube channels during the authorized period for electoral propaganda. The inventory of the ideas-force that were repeated and sustained their political discourses during the time in focus, configured the following semantic fields: antipetism, moral conservatism, leader exaltation, punitivism, and neoliberalism. Bolsonarist-root electoral propaganda, as a technique of mass psychology, revived central affections for political mobilization – hate, fear, resentment, idolatry, and hope – which were intensely exploited by its agitators, as a result of the combination between rational means and irrational ends.