Jair Bolsonaro’s Hard-Right Populism Is Horrifying. But He Didn’t Come From Nowhere.
Rise of the Bolsonaros, a new documentary chronicling Jair Bolsonaro’s ascent, makes for compelling viewing. But it ignores the fact that Brazil’s crises are rooted in its flawed developmental model, not just the rise of a family of reactionary zealots.
President Jair Bolsonaro appears on television during a presidential debate in São Paulo, September 24, 2022. (Rodrigo Paiva / Getty Images)
Now the story of a powerful family who won everything, and the three sons who had no choice but to screw Brazil together. It’s Arrested Development.
So runs the title sequence — give or take some poetic license for the purposes of this review — of the new PBS documentary following the rise of the Bolsonaro family (also shown on BBC as a three-part affair). Released a month before Brazil goes to the polls in what is effectively a two-horse race for president between President Jair Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the documentary attempts to warn the world of the consequences of a second term for the incumbent.
However, its criticisms fall rather flat. They reflect how and why the opposition has failed to rally the Brazilian masses. In counterpoising the destruction of the Amazon to Bolsonaro’s claims about exploiting its untold riches, it fails to tell the truth about Brazilian development and its failures. Worse, it allows bolsonarismo to stand as an avatar of material development (a key part of its mythology), when it is precisely the opposite.
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