Opinion – Mathias Alencastro: Bolsonaristas wage war against debates in the image of Republicans in the USA

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It is normal for politicians to choose their stages, but there is something amazing about Tarcísio de Freitas’ (Republicans) decision to cancel at once all his participation in debates and meetings, including this Monday’s Roda Viva (17). After all, the TV Cultura program, which has been making and unmaking careers for decades, is a cultural heritage of the state of São Paulo.

Nothing is coincidental in Bolsonarism, and Tarcísio’s position follows the strategy of canceling public debates adopted by Trumpist candidates in the United States during the campaign for the midterm elections, in November.

The Republican Party set the tone in April, when it formalized its withdrawal from the bipartisan committee that organizes presidential debates. The pressure came from Donald Trump himself, who says he is the victim of a setup. Because of the 2020 health restrictions, he was unable to repeat with Joe Biden the recipe for physical and moral intimidation, with the threat of arrest, used against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Following presidential precedent, Republican candidates are refusing to meet their opponents. Former football player Herschel Walker, the quintessential Trumpist politician, avoids a confrontation with the Reverend Raphael Warnock in the Georgia Senate race, and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a reelection candidate, has nullified all debates. Everything is in place for the Republican candidate to create an entirely new model in the 2024 presidential election.

The relationship between new right candidates and debates is far from static. Twenty years ago, freedom of expression theorists were still debating the pertinence of opening up public space for their leaders. In 2002, Jacques Chirac refused to debate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the second round in the name of the cordon sanitaire that isolated the extreme right from the rest of the political class and, in particular, from the moderate right.

In 2022, his daughter Marine Le Pen was treated as a normal politician by Emmanuel Macron in the presidential debate. A month later, her party elected the largest bench of deputies in its history in the National Assembly. With the rare exception of Portugal and Spain, where Vox and Chega! continue to be occasionally excluded from the institutional and media landscape, extreme right parties dominate television and radio stations in Italy, France and Germany.

Despite the constant bluff about possible moderation by Jair Bolsonaro (PL), his allies have always refused to follow European models and embark on normalization. Bolsonaristas continue to be inspired by Donald Trump and impose themselves through aggression, refusing handshakes and attacking journalists.

Confident in the supremacy of new technologies over traditional media, they use debates as super-studios to create images that will be manipulated and disseminated on social networks. Ironically, Tarcísio decided to leave Roda Viva because, in his only meeting with Fernando Haddad (PT) in the second round, he committed the biggest sin of Bolsonar ethics: excess civility.

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