“Brazil’s Little Flu: How Bolsonaro’s Dismissal of COVID-19 Harms his Electability”
Bolsonaro’s approach of undermining the pandemic could be his downfall
The current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, seems to be unfazed by the worsening situations of COVID-19, despite the rising infected and mortality cases caused by his tenure’s negligence and ignorance. In spite of being infected by the virus in July, Bolsonaro himself has repeatedly rejected the severity of the virus, claiming it to be “a little flu”, and encouraging people to strip their masks off by labelling masks usage as taboo. Although popularity polls show that Bolsonaro’s appeal is still quite high, the long-term impact of COVID-19 mismanagement on Bolsonaro’s electability must not be denied. Since the regime’s foundation is based on two core issues, namely economy and security, a strong blow delivered by COVID-19 is going to rupture that foundation. Hence, I argue that Bolsonaro’s persistence on denying COVID-19 will debilitate his power in the long run.
Bolsonaro’s election success stems from his promise to revamp the corruptive political system that has been halting Brazil’s economic growth. By pointing fingers at his political oppositions as the culprit of the infamous money laundering case, Bolsonaro managed to seize victory at ease. This tactic, I argue, puts the blame of economic stagnation on the cabinet of Brazil’s then-President, Dilma Rousseff. The approach employed by Bolsonaro is commonly known as populism, which is a political stance that sets apart ordinary people from the ruling elites (De Vreese et al., 2018). It aims to appeal to those whose interests have been sidelined by the political system. Hence, populist leaders seek to brand themselves as the savior of the ordinary people. In Bolsonaro’s case, his populist appeal derives from his intention to revitalize Brazil’s economy, which has become a vital interest of Brazilians — from the ultra-rich to the poor. By promising rigid capitalistic policies that seek to prioritize economic growth even at the expense of other sectors, Bolsonaro has managed to tap into the people’s concern.
However, the reason for Bolsonaro’s success is going to be the reason for his downfall as well. Since his populism appeal is constructed on the promise of fulfilling the ordinary people’s economic preferences, Bolsonaro needs to ensure such appeal remains ‘buyable’, in the sense that the people can still trust him to successfully achieve their needs. Hence, Bolsonaro’s dismissal and mockery of the virus are counterproductive to said aim, since his government did not take the necessary actions to slow down the infection rate of the virus. As a result, COVID-19 cases in Brazil have been steadily increasing. Unfortunately for Bolsonaro, the rising cases mean more of his constituents are getting affected: the poor and the youth. During the 2018 presidential election, 30–40% of low-income voters voted for him (Cowie, 2018), while almost 60% of his voters constituted the young population (Machado, 2017). The aforementioned data insinuates that the very victims of Bolsonaro’s dismissal are the people who viewed him as the savior of Brazil’s economy. The poor populations are specifically targeted by the virus due to the inadequate health and employment structures. Meanwhile, the youth, despite being proclaimed to be safe from the ravaging virus, has become the latest victims of the virus, with 15% of the total mortality cases are of people under the age of 50 (McCoy & Traiano, 2020).
Thus, the shift of voters is likely to happen because the poor and the youth are directly feeling the impact of Bolsonaro’s dismissal. These people have become ill and incapacitated by the virus that require them to do mandatory isolation. This means that those people are unable to go to work, meet their family, and do other basic activities that they otherwise could were it not for the virus. The impairment of the people’s lives are resulting in the rising rate of unemployment, which has reached 25.4% (Prates & Barbosa, 2020), mainly because the rapid infection rate has forced more businesses to close their doors. The youth and the poor cannot access job opportunities, or have lost their jobs because their employers decided to cut loose on operations. Given that populism is largely dependent on the outcome of the policies, the continuous negative trend of unemployment and health for Bolsonaro’s populist followers is projecting a different spitting image of Bolsonaro: from being savior, to being the very reason why the country is in shambles.
Although recent polls have shown that Bolsonaro’s popularity among his constituents remains quite stable due to his policy of sending emergency aid payments, the help will not be sustainable in the long run. This is because those payments are meant to be short-term help by the government. In fact, the emergency payments are expected to only last until December (Philipps, 2020), meaning that the millions of people who have lost their jobs will be facing another rough path ahead. I argue that the short-term nature of the payments is caused exactly by Bolsonaro’s capitalistic populism that is unwilling to tax the ultra-rich. This is problematic considering that the tax could be used as additional revenues for the government to sustain the payments longer. Moreover, his reluctance to take the pandemic matters seriously will also make the emergency payments practically useless in the long run. The nominal of the payment, which is around $108 (Philipps, 2020), will be easily used up if the people are still unemployed due to the closure of businesses. Owing to Bolsonaro’s mismanagement in curbing the virus, many businesses have decided to close for good due to the high possibility of local transmission — around 716,000 businesses have done so (Lima, 2020). The uncertain scenario caused by the rapid transmission has imposed a risk averse behavior from the companies, leading to many ceasing their activities.
A similar situation can be observed in the United States. Donald Trump’s populism approach adopts an analogous tactic to that of Bolsonaro, in which the former criticizes the previous government’s incapacity to bring benefits to the local people, and vows to protect the so-called sidelined community: the rural, white farmers. Those people have become Trump’s important constituents, alike to that of Bolsonaro with the youth and the poor. However, the ongoing trade-war, and Trump’s inability to curb the transmission of the virus, have caused a rift between Trump and his loyal constituents. Recent polls have shown that there is an 18% decrease of farmers who supported the re-election of Donald Trump, alongside with a 21% decrease of farmers’ satisfaction with Trump’s handling of the pandemic (Hirtzer, 2020). Due to Trump’s dismissal of the virus, by calling it just another seasonal flu, many agricultural factors have shut down after many of the workers caught the virus. It is interesting to see that Bolsonaro has embarked on the same path as Donald Trump, where his dismissal caused multiple shutdowns of businesses, thereby resulting in jobs being lost. The aforementioned parallel example proves exactly my point, in which populist approach is highly vulnerable if the actualization of such an approach does not positively impact the lives of the people whom it promised to save.
Notwithstanding the fact that Bolsonaro might still successfully retain his presidential seat, the reality of the voters shift must not be tossed aside that easily. Since the foundation of Bolsonaro’s victory is on the basis of economic revitalization, it is ironic that he dismisses the pandemic that threatens said aim. His survivability, therefore, depends on the next steps that he will take to tame down the ravaging pandemic.
REFERENCES
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De Vreese, C.H., Esser, F., Aalberg, T., Reinemann, C. & Stanyer, J. (2018) ‘Populism as an Expression of Political Communication Content and Style: A New Perspective’, International Journal of Press/Politics, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 423–438.
Hirtzer, M. (2020) Trump Losing Support Among Farmers Over Handling of Virus, Survey Says, Bloomberg, retrieved 25 November 2020, <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-19/trump-s-re-election-support-from-farmers-ebbs-on-virus-dtn-says>.
Lima, R. (2020) Pandemic: at least 716,000 businesses have closed for good, The Brazilian Report, retrieved 24 November 2020, <https://brazilian.report/coronavirus-brazil-live-blog/2020/07/16/pandemic-at-least-716000-businesses-have-closed-for-good/>.
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McCoy, T. & Traiano, H. (2020) El coronavirus está matando a muchos más jóvenes en los países en vías de desarrollo, The Washington Post, retrieved 24 November 2020, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/es/tablet/2020/05/24/en-los-paises-en-vias-de-desarrollo-el-coronavirus-esta-matando-muchos-mas-jovenes/>.
Philipps, D. (2020) He became a hero: Bolsonaro sees popularity surge as Covid-19 spreads, The Guardian, retrieved 25 November 2020, <https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/oct/10/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-coronavirus-aid>.
Prates, I. & Barbosa, R.J. (2020) ‘The Impact of COVID-19 in Brazil: Labour Market and Social Protection Responses’, The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, vol. 63, pp. 31–35.