Politics and religion

Bolsonaro under the perspective of the construction of a “myth”

Abstract

This study proposes a preliminary discussion on the circulation of graphisms, images and discourses around Jair Messias Bolsonaro. We highlight the myriad religious and pararreligious mediations whereby his antagonists and sympathisers try to make sense of his character, since the articulation of his platform — still on the eve of the 2016 coup d’état — and until the vicissitudes of his presidency. We argue that, in the making of his platform, there was a transition, marked by performances and exhibitions of his image, such as his baptism in the Jordan River, toward the elements that made Bolsonaro into a decisive leadership and a point of resonance for Brazilian conservatism. Among supporters, Bolsonaro's baptism reinforces the view of him as a heroic and messianic leader, an incarnation of the national State itself. Among critics, some of whom are linked to specific institutional religions, the baptism presents him as an opportunist, an anti-hero who disrespects the State, religion and human life. We conclude that these discourses, in their diversity, resort to common religious beliefs in Brazil as powerful metaideological tools, capable of provoking both distancing and intense mobilisation.