Luis Gouveia Junior: What Portugal can teach us about the far Right

By Dilip -

Unless progressive social movements challenge the shortcomings of liberal democracy, the appeal of ‘anti-system’ candidates will only grow    I was unlucky enough to be living in Rio de Janeiro when Jair Bolsonaro, before he became Brazil’s president, was elected to Congress in 2014 with the most votes in the state’s history. Then, two years later, I was living in the US when Trump won the Republican primaries. This year, in Portugal, I am living a similar nightmare.

André Ventura, the local figurehead of the far Right, continues to gain ground at startling speed. After his party, Chega, received just 1.29% of the vote in 2019’s legislative elections, Ventura jumped to 12% in the presidential election of January this year.

On the American continent, it seemed easy to understand Bolsonaro and Trump’s electoral success. Brazil and the US both faced undeniable problems, and the two candidates provided simple, if racist and undemocratic answers. Bolsonaro was a strongman who proposed to crack down on the violence and crime that plagues Rio de Janeiro. Trump was a voice for the part of his country that blamed immigrants for taking their jobs….

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/portugal-learn-from-far-right-chega-ventura-en/

Walter Benjamin: Capitalism as Religion (1921)

Didier Fassin: The blind spots of left populism

Beware the destruction of the state! An interview with Timothy Snyder

Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?

Andrew Calcutt: The surprising origins of ‘post-truth’ – and how it was spawned by the liberal left

A pre-history of post-truth, East and West. By MARCI SHORE

Michiko Kakutani - The death of truth: how we gave up on facts and ended up with Trump

Farewell to reality - WHY WE’RE POST-FACT by Peter Pomerantsev

How capitalism created the post-truth society — and brought about its own undoing. By Keith Spencer

Helen Pluckrose: Postmodernism and its impact, explained

Why can’t we agree on what’s true any more? By William Davies

Praveen Swami: This Op-Ed Is Dead

Charlie Hebdo - Letter to the Left Leaning

What happened to democracy in 2020?


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