The second red tide in Latin America showed that progressive alliances can with the new right. But already in power, almost all the leftist governments from Buenos Aires to Santiago de Chile, and increasingly, in Brasilia, are in crisis.
To analyze this delicate Latin American situation during a visit to the Brazilian megalopolis of Sao Paulo, Vladimir Safatle, the Brazilian philosopher, seemed an ideal interlocutor.
Born in Chile but of Brazilian nationality, Safatle is the author of several books on the rise of the extreme right and the response of progressivism on both shores of the Atlantic, the last one in Spanish Ways to transform worlds (Prometeo, 2023).
Forced to leave Brazil after the victory of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 when he received several death threats, he went into exile in Germany and France but returned last year to run in the elections in Sao Paulo as a candidate for the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), member of the broad electoral coalition in defense of Brazilian democracy.
During a dinner of steak with onions in the São Paulo neighborhood of Higienópolis, Safatle outlined the lessons from Latin America for the electoral process in other countries, specifically, Spain whose latest political innovations – both from the left and the right – were inspired by populism Latin American.
Why are far-right ideologies gaining ground in countries like Spain?
What is happening in Spain is another indication that the rise of the ultra-right is not a one-off event but a structural phenomenon at a historical moment that seems to be the exhaustion of the liberal democracy model. The extreme right on a global scale will increasingly operate as an anti-institutional offensive force. We saw this in the assault on the Three Powers in January in Brasilia. They even stabbed the painting “Las mulatas” by the modernist painter Emiliano de Cavalacanti. It’s not just hooliganism; it is an attack on modernity.
What has been the key to those victories of the left in Latin America in the last elections?
There was a very strong discontent, and a crisis of the neoliberal model. Hence the great protest movements in Chile and Colombia. And the left was able to vocalize, for a moment, that discontent. In Brazil I do not think it is a victory for Lula but a victory against Bolsonaro. Of course, the PT has a national base and structure.
It is not proving easy to govern…
No. The problem is that, once in power, they have not been able to propose other social and economic programs and that creates a very difficult situation for the Latin American left. Parliaments in Brasilia, Santiago, Bogotá and other countries are institutions that have always represented the interests of oligarchies and conservative forces. We have known this for 50 years and it is striking that we do not have a political strategy to combat it. During Lula’s first governments, strong economic growth made it possible to reach agreements with these conservative groups. It’s not like that. And I am afraid that Lula thinks that it is in 2003 but the degree of social conflict is much greater now. If he continues like this he will not be re-elected in 2026.
Lula says that he has no margin to do more. It’s true?
Lula believes that the correlation of forces is against him, but I believe that he has to promote measures that change that correlation and he is not doing so. Even if the opposition blocks the program in Congress, it is important that the people see that the government has an agenda for profound change and must be mobilized outside of parliament. I think that, for example, a tax on wealth to finance healthcare would be a measure that would mobilize people.
In these last elections in Brazil, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal has been very aggressive in prohibiting false news circulated by Bolsonaro that was so decisive in the 2018 elections. Did it work?
Nothing can be done from above against false news. You have to get close to people, listen and talk, which we no longer do. I am a reader of the Frankfurt School and this question is not new. It arose in the analysis of the fascism of the Frankfurters in the 40s and 50s. Teodoro Adorno said it clearly: “People are not being deceived, people want to be deceived.” That is the question. If it was just a matter of being deceived in order to show them the truth, people would notice. But it’s not like that. There is a structural impossibility of rectification. No matter how many corrections we make, people will not change their minds. And it’s because he doesn’t want to change.
Because?
Because there is a clear desire to affirm their belonging to a group that offers an alternative and in that group – the far-right networks – false or true news is shared. People don’t necessarily believe what they read and share on those social media groups. They want to be in a strategic place. Official measures to combat fake news cannot work. In reality, we have always been fighting false information in political processes. Especially those of us on the left. But you have to listen to people and find out what their true feelings and fears are. The extreme right is being able to verbalize it.
Do you think there is a danger of fascism?
In the Brazilian case, Bolsonarismo is an update of the fascism of the integralist movement of the 1930s, with 1.2 million members, the largest in the world at the time, outside of Europe. Bolsonaro used the movement’s slogan “God, Homeland and Freedom.” A slogan that has a terrible history in Spain too. I am an academic and understand the importance of terms. And I have no qualms using the term fascist. There is a threat but it cannot be fought with moral speeches. Support for the most precarious layers must be strengthened because there is an important segment of the popular vote that voted for Bolsonaro and in the future there may be more. In the campaign I spoke with many groups in Sao Paulo, Uber drivers go for example, and they are all Bolsonaristas, out of a desire to be allowed to earn money, without imposing new hierarchies on them. And right now if you take a car and go to the interior of Sao Paulo, you are no longer in Brazil. You are in Texas… In Brazil there is no longer a center right; The extreme right is already the economic and social pole of what the right was. And it will be led by other figures, beyond Bolsonaro, such as the current governor of Sao Paulo, Tarcisio de Freitas.
Was the broad front a good strategy to win the right?
I don’t think it was necessary to move so much to the center to win the elections because the center is ungovernable. In Chile, for example, Boric came to power in a state of paralysis. He implemented a very strange program for a young leftist leader. In drug trafficking they adopted a right-wing discourse. In Mapuche lands, the response has been military. Meanwhile, in the constitutional process he completely forgot that it is necessary to explain things. For example, the plurinational state is a great achievement of Latin American politics. But you have to explain it well. In Chile, they began with a speech delivered in Mapuche. Only 1% of the population could understand it. The result of the lack of attention in explaining the plans well is that José Antonio Kast -who was overwhelmingly defeated in the presidential elections- now has total control of the constituent process.
Do you think that the experience of Latin America has lessons for Spain?
I think there are two important elements to defeat the extreme right in Spain. One is to constantly remember the organic relationship between Vox and the Francoist past, that is, they want to recover the legacy of Francoism and this will end democracy. But saying this by itself doesn’t work. Just a scary speech is not enough. We must recover the agenda of the protests with concrete measures of transformation and social justice, and redistribution. This did not happen in Brazil and that is why we are in such a difficult situation now. The same thing happens in Chile. If you do not do important things in the first 100 days, you are lost and the initiative is recovered by the extreme right.
