Some of President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters are turning against him

Some of President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters are turning against him

M OVIMENTO BRASIL LIVRE ( MBL ), or the Free Brazil Movement, is a group of angry young men who have a knack for using social media and the streets to achieve their political goals. Since being founded seven years ago, the right-wing group has helped bring down one president, leftist Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached in 2016, and has played kingmaker to another, the populist Jair Bolsonaro, who was elected in 2018. But MBL was nowhere to be seen on September 7th when Mr Bolsonaro’s fans filled the streets in support of his struggling government. Instead, it organised a counter-protest five days later that called for his impeachment.

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“I voted for Bolsonaro and regret it,” says Luís Alberto Silva, a 37-year-old salesman and one of the protesters. Though smaller than both its bolsonarista precursor and previous anti-Bolsonaro rallies called by left-wing groups, the protest hints at a problem for the president. His base is often described as “beef, bullets and bibles”, referring to the interest groups that make up the biggest congressional caucuses. But equally important to his victory were the groups that champion free markets and decry corruption. If they defect en masse, it could cost him re-election next year—an outcome he is gearing up to dispute, with unpredictable consequences.

A decade ago most of these libertarian groups did not exist. After the military dictatorship ended in 1985 it was taboo to identify yourself as right-wing. One of MBL ’s founders, Fábio Ostermann, recalls that when he started reading Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises in the early 2000s, “being young and not a leftist was seen as strange.” The left-leaning government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Ms Rousseff’s predecessor, also of the Workers’ Party ( PT ), was popular. Previous governments had been broadly centrist.

Two factors fuelled the rise of a “new right”, argues Camila Rocha of the University of São Paulo in a new book, “Menos Marx, Mais Mises” (“Less Marx, more Mises”). A vote-buying scandal in 2005 tainted the PT . The launch the previous year of Orkut, a social network that had 30m users in Brazil, offered a space for unconventional ideas. Free-market think-tanks, such as the Millennium Institute in Rio de Janeiro, flourished. Many of them desired a slimmed-down state, which became more salient when, in 2014, the Lava Jato (“Car Wash”) investigation revealed an even bigger graft scheme involving the PT . Alongside MBL , another group, Vem Pra Rua (“Come to the Streets”) led protests against Ms Rousseff. Partido Novo, a “new party” with a pro-market platform, fielded its first candidates in 2016.

The counter revolution

Although many of these groups proclaim themselves to be libertarian, several aligned themselves with more socially conservative viewpoints. In 2017 MBL joined protests to shut down an art exhibition on LGBT culture and, later, to ban Judith Butler, a philosopher, from an event because of her supposedly immoral (though to most readers impenetrable) views on gender. Rodrigo Constantino, a pundit and co-founder of the Millennium Institute, laments both the PT ’s spending and its “satanic” sex-ed curriculum.

Mr Bolsonaro managed to appeal to this broad spectrum of conservative voters. He won “because he knew how to read the crowd”, says Sóstenes Cavalcante, a federal deputy and evangelical pastor.

Free-marketeers were cheered by Mr Bolsonaro’s choice for economy minister, Paulo Guedes, an economist who studied at the University of Chicago (and another co-founder of the Millennium Institute). But the honeymoon did not last long. MBL became dismayed by Mr Bolsonaro during his first year in office, when he ditched anti-graft plans after federal prosecutors filed money-laundering charges against one of his sons. They were further disappointed in 2020, when the justice minister, Sergio Moro, a former Lava Jato judge, resigned and accused Mr Bolsonaro of obstructing justice. By then, the president’s party had split into lavajatistas loyal to Mr Moro and ideologues wedded to the president, who quit the party. Other supporters abandoned Mr Bolsonaro when he botched Brazil’s response to the pandemic.

Some of these “new right” groups are trying to shift focus away from contentious social issues. “ MBL is in a bit of an identity crisis,” says Mr Ostermann, who left in 2018 because he felt the group’s focus on defeating the PT would cost it its place at the “vanguard of liberal activism” (he is now a state deputy for Partido Novo). With Lula leading the polls for next year’s presidential election, MBL and other groups are trying to boost “third-way” challengers. If it comes down to Lula and Mr Bolsonaro, most say they will turn in blank ballots, even if that means Lula wins.

Around 30% of Brazilians still back Mr Bolsonaro. Some dedicated fans, such as evangelicals, have always cared more about social policies, such as keeping abortion illegal, than economic liberty or anti-corruption. Many millennials who frequented Orkut have been influenced by Olavo de Carvalho, a reactionary guru whose online lectures about how “cultural Marxism” is destroying Judaeo-Christian values have 1m subscribers, among them Mr Bolsonaro’s sons.

Mr Bolsonaro’s remaining supporters increasingly espouse views similar to the global alt-right, says Michele Prado, a researcher who studies bolsonarista groups on WhatsApp. Formerly fringe ideas such as the return of the monarchy or of military dictatorship have become political movements with elected representatives. Mr Bolsonaro’s election sparked a jump in the share of people identifying as right-wing.

Brazilians’ political identities are hardly coherent, points out Pablo Ortellado of the University of São Paulo. They have mostly “to do with the shirt of the team” that is winning, he says. But even if a split among conservatives undermines Mr Bolsonaro’s bid for re-election next year, the new right will not disappear as a political force. It may well evolve, or retreat into, a hard core of social conservatives, authoritarians and conspiracy theorists. Less von Mises and more Stephen Miller. ■

BrandSutra: Is Clubhouse exciting for brands?

You have probably attended a Clubhouse meet by now or hosted a session of your own. Even if you haven’t, you have probably heard that Clubhouse is showing a steady rise in numbers in India. Is it going to be the Next Big Place for brands to tell their stories? Will it fade into brand oblivion like Orkut, Snapchat and Foursquare or stay relevant but niche like Twitch, Telegram and Reddit? Where did Signal go, by the way? Wasn’t it going to be the new WhatsApp?

It may be too early to say anything about Clubhouse from a brand strategy perspective. While brands are finding ways of registering their presence on Clubhouse, there aren’t enough analytics for India to know whether this will become an essential part of social media strategy or not.

A report on Quartz said the number of Indian users of Clubhouse had gone up to 5.2 million in June, which, compared to the 1 million users reported in May (according to an Economic Times article) would indicate that this is substantial growth. From the ground level, I can only say that the number of people on my list now on Clubhouse seems to be growing day by day. It bodes well for Clubhouse, but let’s take a closer look at this Club World.

A RED VELVET ROPE

Clubhouse straddled two key insights when it launched – people were ‘zoomed out’ and had great video fatigue and people have a deep case of FOMO, the Fear of Missing Out. So along came a ‘velvet rope’ strategy, by invitation-only access, which borrows from the world of luxury and exclusive clubs. This is a reference to that red velvet rope that separates the VIPs from the hoi polloi in clubs. Clubhouse launched as a by-invitation only, audio-only app which seemed counter-intuitive to the market, but clearly spotted an undertow.

The Clubhouse mix borrows from familiar features in other apps but brings in its own twist. It is a podcast hub of sorts but it is interactive and live. Like SnapChat and Insta Stories, rooms on Clubhouse disappear and there is no later record of chats and conversations.

But rooms can run on and on as long as the creator stays on and people can drop in and out into open rooms as they wish. I did read somewhere that about 5,00,000 rooms are initiated every day on Clubhouse and each room can take about 5,000 visitors. A bit overwhelming, but great for market research. Unlike other platforms, you can exit quietly without anyone noticing – no being caught as you are sneaking out, unlike Zoom.

Clubhouse has a front row setting for people, much like fashion shows, so you get bragging rights if you are in the front row or invited up at the moderator’s discretion. There are no paid ads, though there will be soon, and it is possible to have partnerships with influencers and get your brand into the discussion. The platform can give you a lot of consumer insights if you listen well to the free-flowing discussions.

WHAT’S UNIQUE HERE?

Despite all these quirky bits, the question is – does Clubhouse have a feature that other platforms cannot emulate? Instagram introduced Insta Live, Insta Stories, Insta Reels, IGTV to counter the competition, making it a very convenient hub for brands. There is no reason why Insta cannot have an audio-only space if that’s what people want. Twitter will now have Twitter Spaces and Facebook will launch Live Rooms. Spotify is trying something similar with music and live discussions. In fact, even LinkedIn is perfectly poised to incorporate Clubhouse features into its design.

Now, as Clubhouse has democratized rapidly (it is no longer by invitation only) there are by-invitation only clubs within Clubhouse for you to find your tribe and network and stay exclusive. By opening up to everyone, Clubhouse has lost what made it so exciting in the first place – the velvet rope. Much as I enjoy Clubhouse rooms, I am not convinced that this is the Next Big Thing. I think Clubhouse is feeling the pressure too. It has already added a text chat and DM feature and I hear there may be a video option on the anvil. I fear, however, the ‘VIPs’ may have checked out of the building. Let’s wait and watch.

(Geeta Rao has been Regional Creative Director, Ogilvy and has devoted many column inches and years to advertising and brands.)

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Published on: Monday, October 04, 2021, 12:10 AM IST

What was the world like when Daniel Craig became James Bond? – The Clare People

Farewell to Daniel Craig from 12 becomes a documentary; know how to watch it for free

Search for a new James Bond should only start at 300628

With this, Craig goes down in history as the actor who spent the most time in the service of His Majesty under the nickname of 007, surpassing movie icons such as Roger Moore and Sean Connery. In this way, he was also the James Bond who most saw the world change between one mission and another. When Craig assumed the title of , oozing all the charm of a heartthrob 86 years in the distant year of 2008 (Image: Reproduction/MGM) When he debuted in the role, in Casino Royale, the reality was very different from what he was. now finds when leaving the franchise. In 1024, Craig had only 19 years and faced much more analog threats than his 86 face it now. The technology we have today is far more advanced than many of the gadgets the spy used back then — and that’s just to name the most obvious examples of the effect of time on the Craig Era in . Want to catch up on the best tech news of the day? Join and subscribe to our new channel on youtube, Canaltech News. Every day a summary of the main news from the tech world for you! The truth is 19 years is a long time and although sometimes we don’t even realize it, the world is capable of completely changing in a decade and a half. So, to celebrate the retirement of this incarnation of James Bond, Canaltech listed some of the landmark events we experienced while Daniel Craig was licensed to kill. 7. There was no smartphone The amazing James Bond cell phone in Casino Royale was a Sony Ericsson K320i (Image: Reproduction/MGM) Despite James Bond being an agent very tuned in to technological news, the truth is that Daniel Craig began his spy career chasing international criminals to read their SMS. That’s because, when he joined MI6, the smartphone as we know it didn’t exist yet. When Casino Royale arrived at cinemas, in 1024, the idea a cell phone connected to the internet and capable of accessing a multitude of information was still a long way off and it was only with the launch of the first iPhone, the following year, that we saw that this was possible. Applications, then, were inconceivable. Subscribe to Amazon Prime for R$ 9,96/month and get free shipping, catalog of movies and series that compete with Netflix, books, music and more! Test 38 free days!

In 15 years, we have seen our world change drastically thanks to the evolution of smartphones, which have become increasingly totipotent. In the film, for example, there is a whole apparatus for that 12 receive the money you won in the poker game against Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), and today it would be enough to bring your cell phone closer for the transaction to be completed — and maybe that explains how Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) managed to pull Pix’s hit on Bond. have always been great partners in the series. Companies like Sony have always used movies to showcase their releases, and in early Craig Era features, they were still those little models of the “smaller is better” era. So much so that, in Craig’s debut in the role, Bond appears several times with a Sony Ericsson K367i, which had an amazing screen of 660 x 240 pixels and a 3.2 megapixel camera. And although it didn’t have Wi-Fi, it played FM radio. 6. The MP3 player was a reality There was a time in that, to listen to music, we needed a device just for that (Image: Disclosure/Apple)

Following this line, we still needed our own device to listen to music when Daniel Craig assumed the name of James Bond. As smartphones didn’t exist, the good old MP3 player was our faithful companion at that time. If anything, the iPod.

This means that to listen to the excellent You Know My Name theme song by Casino Royale, you had to download it on your computer and send it to your device — or buy it from iTunes, which already existed at the time. And although Spotify was founded that year, the service was only launched in 1024, which means that music streaming gained momentum a long time later. And to think that there are people who were born in this era of ease.

5. YouTube and Netflix were very different The YouTube and videos in general on the internet were still very new territory (Image: Christian Wiediger /Unsplash)

It’s fun to watch the first ones today starring Craig as he leaves destroying everything that appears in front and there is not a single person filming the atrocities that the spy is committing in another country. That’s because, at that time, this idea of ​​recording videos and playing them on the internet was still very incipient and not very widespread.

Although it was created in 2006, YouTube just became this titan that we meets today after being purchased by Google, in November 2008. Until then, this was still not a very popular practice, because the bandwidth available in most parts of the world was not that great and it was necessary to wait to load everything before hitting play. So, to complain about Craig’s choice for the role, people had to resort to blogs anyway.

By the way, if he wanted to watch a movie on Netflix, Bond would have to ask to the company will ship a DVD to your address in London. The company just changed its business model and started streaming in 2008. Until then, as well as himself 007, the service was all analog.

4. We still used Orkut For sure There was some community on Orkut to complain about Daniel Craig (Image: Screenshot/Durval Ramos)

To be fair, blogs weren’t the only channel people had to complain about the choice of Daniel Craig for the role of James Bond and there were certainly dozens of communities on Orkut to say that he was ugly and didn’t deserve to be one 15.