The Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in Brazil

Abstract

The starting point of this text is the 2016 coup d’état, which removed Dilma Roussef from the Presidency of the Republic and increased the political space for the rise of the extreme right in Brazil. Thus, we analyze the Michel Temer government and the series of measures adopted to satisfy the most immediate interests of the bourgeoisie, which deepened austerity policies and the dismantling of the state apparatus. We continue with the rise of Bolsonaro, who represented not only a shock to the fragile Brazilian bourgeois democracy but also a president identified with the extreme right. His policies intended to deepen the neoliberal reforms in all aspects of economic and social life and acted in a decisive way to destroy the progress Brazil had made in the field of diversity and inclusion, among others. To this end, he has assembled a team of never before-seen extreme right-wingers..