Democracia, liberdade e gênero: ressignificações perigosas no discurso de Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022)

Abstract

This study analyzes how the presidential discourse of Jair Bolsonaro, disseminated in live streams on YouTube between 2019 and 2022, operates through the reconfiguration of the meanings of freedom and democracy, contributing to processes of dedemocratization in which democracy is undermined in the name of democracy itself. To investigate how the discourse of Jair Bolsonaro reformulates the concepts of freedom and democracy in order to promote dedemocratization, the transcriptions of the live streams were analyzed by Content Analysis, with the aid of the software MAXQDA. It is argued that Bolsonaro’s discourse operates through three articulated moves. First, it constructs a binary opposition that associates the left with communism, corruption, and dictatorship, while presenting the right as synonymous with democracy and freedom, a narrative that enables the delegitimization of democratic institutions portrayed as infiltrated and captured by an ideological enemy. Second, it redefines the meaning of freedom and democracy by linking them to the defense of traditional Christian morality, framing feminist and gender agendas as threats to the family, to society, and to democracy itself. Finally, it identifies democracy with the figure of the leader and with the will of his followers, converting personal loyalty into a criterion of political legitimacy and hollowing out democratic pluralism. The results show that this discursive configuration delegitimizes democratic institutions and the defense of gender- and sexuality-related rights in the public debate, personalizes political authority by transforming loyalty to the leader into a criterion of legitimacy, treats political opponents as enemies and restricts pluralism, and normalizes the acceptance of extra-institutional solutions, such as coups d’état, thus contributing to processes of democratic erosion in Brazil.