Comment by soneca
9 hours ago
I have a learning a bit more related to tech from this election. Centrally organized, cohesive, persistent online engagement wins elections.
It won for Bolsonaro whose campaign nailed it in 2018. It didn’t win in 2022 because he was completely bad in dealing with pandemics (mocking people dying and saying he had nothing to do with it being president).
Now, Lula’s campaign was absolutely dead during the whole time. Until it lost in the legislative by a mile and in the President run had a partial loss in the first round. Then the campaign lit up after the partial upset.
Janones, an energetic young guy elected to legislative with good online presence led the campaign. He achieved creating a WhatsApp group with 11 million people called “Lula’s army”. He would give the directions and the people would obey almost blindly.
The interwebs (basically WhatsApp + Instagram) got flooded with this top to bottom Lula’s campaign.
The first round results made Bolsonaro very favorite. Lula victory was a huge upset. I put the merit in this incessant social media campaign.
The thing is: “centrally planned cohesive campaign” looks a lot like a cult. The point of the campaign is not critical thought or argumentation, it is incessant messaging. Think fandoms.
Bolsonaro voters pejorative nickname from past campaigns was they were all “cattle”. Because that is how they behaved online. Ironically, what worked for Lula voters this year was they behaving like “cattle”. Just reposting and following this central orders on what to post, what to say, what to dress.
The thing is, it works. Cult-like fandoms work in elections. The right won a few elections like this in the world. In Brazil, the left just learned how to do it was well.
The more mindless posters a politician has following their campaign HQ orders, the more votes they have.
In India, we have a name for for blind supporters of the current Hindu right ruling party.. The BJP... They're called andh bhakts... Translated 'the faithful blind'... Even incontrovertible proof of wrong doing does not change their mindset
Lula's been involved in over a dozen corruption scandals by now. It doesn't matter to anyone. It's been completely normalized.
Flavio seems to be a mob leader, why anybody would care that Lula was caught stealing things?
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When one doesn’t have a response based on logic and common sense, one resorts to name calling.
Fact is, whether you like it or not, the party in power has been in power only for a few years, and has achieved more than the other party did in 60 years.
Do you really believe that the INC would have handled Covid better? They were trying to kill off indigenous vaccines to favour Pfizer etc who (a) refused trials in Indian conditions and (b) wanted $62 per shot.
Do you really believe that they would have managed to keep fuel prices in check given Trump's war on Iran?
Do you really believe that Rahul Gandhi is qualified to run a home owner's association, leave alone a nation of 1.4 billion people?
Take a look in the mirror then next time you use that phrase.
> Even incontrovertible proof of wrong doing does not change their mindset
You could argue that about pretty much every politician and their supporters in India. The right wing keeps winning because the left refuses to address the fears of a majority of the Indian population. Even if those fears are unwarranted - dismissing them as "uneducated" and "blind sheep" alienates people even more.
Most of that gear is manufactured.. With mass media fully captured.. So yes, unwarranted.. And the people are coming out of the spell.. Esp as they see their children suffer due to the systemic damage... These are the silent majority that's slow to react but eventually does.. That's what put the fear in the govt now and precipitated the massive crackdown on dissent.
Opposition is full of corrupt dynasties who ruled India for 65years with iron fist. Indians want dynasties out.
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Absolutely. Janones won this election. Let's see if he will be part of the government or will be sidelined again.
Janones was not leading a cult, this is just absurd. He was not telling people what to believe or how to behave AT ALL - he was just giving directions on what to do on social media to win the elections. Bolsonarism on the other hand is 100% a cult, from the beginning.
> It didn’t win in 2022 because he was completely bad in dealing with pandemics
And also because the entire state apparatus was engaged in unconstitutional censorship of his "centrally organized, cohesive, persistent online engagement" machine, which is what wins elections, as you noted.
And now that Janones set up his own "Lula's Army", Brazilian institutions did not manifest even a fraction of the energy they had shown while persecuting Bolsonaro.
Lula was allowed to do everything Bolsonaro was persecuted for in 2022. He even lowered taxes on fuels, and got away with it. The tax cut ends tomorrow.