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The sitting Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro secured an unexpected 43 percent vote in the recent first round of the presidential election, close behind his opponent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (48 percent).
Many polling companies had predicted Bolsonaro would not do that well in the first round, and there had even been predictions that Lula could get a clear enough lead to gain an all-out victory. But Bolsonaro bounced back, pulling in enough votes to secure a second round on October 30.
Populists manage this in several ways. They advance simple-to-understand messages and ideas that tap into strong emotional desires of a significant section of the population.
They seek to align their public persona with that of an outsider who is fighting against the system, even when this is not a natural fit. (This is how billionaire Trump and privately educated Johnson became seen as men of the people, despite having privileged lives.)
And they make powerful use of modern communication methods, which today means the internet and social media.
In the UK’s referendum on European Union membership, Johnson and others advocating to leave the EU understood that a sizeable number of the British public felt left behind by globalisation and were fed up with (as they saw it) being dictated to by the EU.
Similarly, Trump tapped into “traditional values” and conservative desires within a section of the US public who recalled a world of greater prosperity and job security.
Meanwhile, in India, Modi taps into nationalist pride and sectarian privilege. Bolsonaro seeks to reject progressive politics and return to “traditional family values”.
In making use of this nostalgia, populists often define themselves and their supporters as outsiders, who have lost out as progressive values have taken over (even when these politicians come from established elites).
So, if you are a Brazilian gun owner who opposes gay rights, the rights of Indigenous people and abortion, then Bolsonaro provides you with a ready-made political home.
Similarly, populists use narratives that existing institutions of government and “mainstream” politicians had failed the public. In the case of Bolsonaro, as with Trump, this has clearly resonated well with voters, some of whom have accepted the arguments that government officials and civil servants are lazy, “woke” and keen to meddle in their affairs.
Political scientist Jonathan Hopkins describes this wave of politicians as “anti-system”. Their central premise is to redraw the established political system, nationally and internationally.
Successful anti-system figures including Trump and Johnson (and importantly their campaign teams) have also harnessed the power of social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, 8Chan and private messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Signal to nurture politically sympathetic communities.
This makes their success, in part, a story about the rise of a new kind of political communications.
Recent political campaigns have been powerful because they use a trick of the internet to enhance their effectiveness.
Democratic systems seem peculiarly poorly suited to dealing with these challenges, For example, the widespread use of WhatsApp in Indian politics, or persuasive fake websites in the Brazilian election has made it impossible for regulators to check or roll back disinformation in time to prevent harm.
For those seeking to defeat populist politicians, they are faced with a difficult choice of being labelled as candidates of the establishment, or joining anti-system politicians in guerrilla marketing campaigns and sloganeering aimed at radically mobilising the public.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)