Progressive voters and supporters of incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva left reeling after far-right surge
Flávio Bolsonaro is in pole position to win Brazil’s presidential election, after a far-right tsunami propelled him to a shock first-round victory over the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leaving progressive voters reeling.
The 45-year-old rightwing candidate received 56.1m votes to Lula’s 53.8m – 47.03% to 45.16% – meaning the 80-year-old leftwinger has a mountain to climb if he is to bounce back in the second round on 25 October. Never, since the return of democracy to Brazil in 1985, has the first-round runner-up managed to turn the game around and win the second ballot.
“Miracles are possible in politics. But I don’t see that happening,” the political scientist Miguel Lago said of Lula’s chances of snapping back. “I don’t see Flávio losing this election now.”
Actually I think the Bush example is a bad one because I think that aspect of the 2016 election was memory-holed.
Originally the media was pushing Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton, and Clinton herself was so fucksure that was going to be the match up she pushed her media contacts to focus on lunatics like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, trying to show people how crazy they were. She underestimated two things here.
People being tired of both the Bushes and the Clintons. Trump came in as an outsider and shook things up, as no one was enthusiastic for Jeb “please clap” Bush. Clinton used the fact that she was essentially funding the entire DNC apparatus to put the finger on the scale because no one was really excited for her either, although she never had an equivalent “please clap” moment.
How people saw politicians like Bush and Clinton as maneuvering and calculating and following the winds of popularity rather than facing difficult problems head on. As much as Clinton was right to peg Trump as a lunatic, she underestimated (I did and still do too, I don’t get it) Trump’s charisma. Her self assuredness that it would be her vs. Bush was a total misread of an era where people were sick of current politicians in general and any kind of outsider became appealing (the explosion of interest in Bernie Sanders is snother example in the same period).
Anyway I think the push for Bush . Clinton alienated a lot of voters from both. I remember it was a common complaint I heard at the time from both people on the left and right.
I think she also missed the fact that a lot of people wanted a lunatic. They were dissatisfied with “the system” and someone like Trump promised to blow the system up.
Which he has, frankly. Not the ideal way to go about it but it was effective. They’re also starting to learn how good the old system was for them, too late alas.