--- title: How the Unraveling of Brazil’s Social Contract Paved the Way for Bolsonaros description: Over the past decade, Brazil’s social fabric and institutions have been transformed in ways that have enabled the rise and the return of the Bolsonaros. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/10/07/brazil-lula-new-republic-trump-election-runoff-bolsonaro/ author: Guilherme Casarões article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-10-08T10:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-07T18:27:58.190Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How the Unraveling of Brazil’s Social Contract Paved the Way for Bolsonaros og:description: "Over the past decade, Brazil’s social fabric and institutions have been transformed in ways that have enabled the rise and the return of the Bolsonaros," writes Guilherme Casarões. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/10/07/brazil-lula-new-republic-trump-election-runoff-bolsonaro/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c7d5662a2e2ff61/6ac6254bc7c47f4b6b91efa3/GettyImages-2298112948.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: GettyImages-2298112948.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How the Unraveling of Brazil’s Social Contract Paved the Way for Bolsonaros twitter:description: "Over the past decade, Brazil’s social fabric and institutions have been transformed in ways that have enabled the rise and the return of the Bolsonaros," writes Guilherme Casarões. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c7d5662a2e2ff61/6ac6254bc7c47f4b6b91efa3/GettyImages-2298112948.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How the Unraveling of Brazil’s Social Contract Paved the Way for Bolsonaros > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=50abd54f-f920-4f6d-9c91-29e74b3fe248&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) by [Guilherme Casarões](https://time.com/author/guilherme-casar-es/) ## Guilherme Casarões Guilherme Casarões is Associate Professor of Brazil Studies at Florida International University. Oct 8, 2026 10:00 AM UTC  A person reaches for a copy of the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reporting Brazil's presidential election results at a newsstand in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 5, 2026. A person reaches for a copy of the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reporting Brazil's presidential election results at a newsstand in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 5, 2026. Luis Robayo-AFP via Getty Images by [Guilherme Casarões](https://time.com/author/guilherme-casar-es/) ## Guilherme Casarões Guilherme Casarões is Associate Professor of Brazil Studies at Florida International University. Oct 8, 2026 10:00 AM UTC Picture this: after being defeated in his bid for re-election, a president refuses to concede, spreads lies about voter fraud and calls upon supporters to overturn the results. Four years later, half the country is still loyal to the man, and those voters ultimately pave the way for his return to power. This may conjure images of President Donald Trump and the United States in 2021\. But what I am describing here is Brazil’s recent elections on Oct. 4\. Brazil’s former president,[ Jair Bolsonaro](https://time.com/7316695/how-brazil-convicted-jair-bolsonaro/), who plotted a coup to remain in power in 2022, is serving 27 years for crimes against democracy. So he picked his oldest son,[ Flávio Bolsonaro](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/world/americas/brazil-election-flavio-jair-bolsonaro.html), to run on his behalf. Brazil’s current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won 45% of the vote. Bolsonaro Jr. did better, receiving 47% of the vote. Yet both fell short of the 50% required for a clear victory, which forced a runoff to be held on Oct. 25\. With[ 56 million](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/5/brazils-presidential-race-three-key-takeaways-from-the-first-round) Brazilians voting for Bolsonaro Jr., the Brazilian far-right is again close to gaining control of the presidency after the[ runoff](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/world/americas/brazil-election-lula-bolsonaro.html). In theory, Bolsonaro Jr. should never have come this close. He has spent his entire adult life in elected office, first as a state legislator in Rio de Janeiro and then as a senator. He has little of the charisma that made his father a phenomenon. His platform[ offers more slogans](https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2026/brazilians-will-go-polls-without-plan-economic-policies) than proposals. He has spent years fending off[ corruption allegations](https://insightcrime.org/news/bolsonaro-family-corruption-scandals/), most notably involving a[ salary-kickback scheme](https://insightcrime.org/news/rachadinha-corruption-scheme-haunting-bolsonaro-brazil/) in his old legislative office and ties to[ local criminal gangs](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/brazil-bolsonaro-militias.html) in Rio. To add insult to injury, he was recently found to have[ received millions from Daniel Vorcaro](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/10/07/in-brazil-scandals-fail-to-slow-flavio-bolsonaro-s-political-rise%5F6758335%5F4.html), a former banker who is at the center of Brazil’s biggest financial scandal. Yet Bolsonaro Jr. has a real chance of being elected the next president. How did Brazil get here? ### **Brazil’s transformation** President Lula, who is running for a fourth term, is widely regarded as a champion of job creation and[ poverty reduction](https://time.com/archive/6893980/the-war-on-poverty/) in Brazil. His[ critics argue](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/temer-lula-rousseff-brazil-operation-carwash-corruption/535029/) that many Brazilians hate him for being crooked: in 2017, he was convicted and jailed on[ corruption charges](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56326389), which were later annulled. But as Bolsonaro Jr.’s trajectory shows, the Bolsonaro family can hardly come across as honest and pious. So, this is not an election about corruption. It is not about democracy either, as many see[ Lula and the Supreme Court of Brazil](https://www.riotimesonline.com/u-s-brazil-tensions-rise-as-lula-backs-moraes-controversial-arrest-push/) as authoritarian forces. What explains Bolsonaro Jr.’s rather surprising performance is that Brazil itself has changed. Over the past decade, the country’s social fabric and institutions have been transformed in ways that have enabled _bolsonarismo_ to return stronger than ever. The backdrop is the slow unraveling of Brazil’s “[New Republic](https://verfassungsblog.de/no-need-for-a-new-constitution-in-brazil/),” the democratic pact forged after the country’s military dictatorship ended in 1985 and enshrined in its 1988 Constitution. That pact rested on pluralism, consensus-building, and the promise that democracy would bring stability, prosperity, and social justice. That promise no longer persuades most Brazilians. But a dead social contract explains what Brazilian voters are walking away from, not what they are moving toward. To understand that, we have to look at four shifts in Brazilian society and politics. The first is the transformation of work. Scholars have[ examined](https://www.scielo.br/j/ha/a/yPt3DTS4mtM3Jr7KPzzqsQK/?lang=en) how the Brazilian far right has managed to capture the grievances of informal and self-employed workers. These include app drivers, delivery riders, street vendors, and small entrepreneurs who make up a growing share of the workforce in a country where precarious work has become the norm. The vocabulary of the Brazilian left was built for a different economy, one of formal contracts, labor unions, and state protection. To many of these workers, the state is not a protector, but an obstacle. When[ _bolsonarismo_](https://clacs.berkeley.edu/brazil-life-and-death-new-republic)talks about freedom, its message is simple: the government should get out of people's way. Prosperity theology, preached from thousands of[ evangelical pulpits](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/forget-the-germans-this-is-where-the-protestant-reformation-debates-are-happening-now/2017/10/29/7723af30-b807-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb%5Fstory.html), reinforces that message: a better life comes through a combination of faith and personal effort. Politicians in Brasília, the capital, have nothing to do with it. The second shift began on the left roughly two decades ago, as progressive movements increasingly[ organized around](https://wethepeople.spia.uga.edu/article/spia-professor-studies-the-rise-of-the-far-right-candidates-in-the-2018-brazil-election/) race, gender, and sexuality rather than class. Those struggles produced real and overdue gains. But as identity became more central to progressive politics, the material concerns that once united working-class voters faded into the background. The right answered with religion and an increasingly radical conservatism. Evangelical Christians now make up[ about a quarter](https://www.e-n.org.uk/world-news/2026-10-brazil-a-quarter-of-population-are-evangelical-new-survey-shows/) of Brazil's population, and their churches often serve as a social safety net in neighborhoods the state has abandoned. Elections have increasingly become referendums on family, faith and nation rather than on wages, jobs and public services. On that terrain, the left has struggled to compete. The third shift is the erosion of trust in institutions. Decades of corruption scandals, elitism on both left and right, and the failure of successive governments to deliver have turned Congress, the courts and the presidency into lightning rods for public anger. Ironically, Brazil’s anti-establishment wave began on the left. In June 2013, during[ Dilma Rousseff’s presidency](https://time.com/4433320/brazil-dilma-rousseff-impeachment-olympics/),[ protests](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/world/americas/brazil-protests.html) against bus-fare hikes spread across the country. They grew into a broad revolt against the political system, and the right harnessed that energy and anger as Brazil moved through the[ Car Wash investigation](https://time.com/4253748/the-big-names-in-brazils-corruption-scandal/), the[ impeachment of Rousseff](https://time.com/4476011/brazil-dilma-rousseff-crisis-impeachment/), the conviction of Lula, and the[ rise of Jair Bolsonaro](https://time.com/5437777/brazil-bolsonaro-president-far-right-victory/). Today, churches are the only institutions that still command broad trust in Brazil. The military enjoyed similar standing until[ the Jan. 2023 coup plot](https://time.com/7316695/how-brazil-convicted-jair-bolsonaro/) came to light. This helps explain the hardest part of the question. To many of Bolsonaro Jr.’s voters, his father’s conviction does not disqualify the Bolsonaro family. It confirms their claim to be victims of the establishment. If the system is rotten, a guilty verdict handed down by the Supreme Court looks less like justice and more like a witch hunt. The fourth shift is digital. Brazil has become[ a testing ground](https://bylinetimes.com/2026/10/02/digital-armies-and-disinformation-how-big-tech-is-hitting-brazils-upcoming-election/) for disinformation, algorithmic warfare, and digital influencers turned politicians, from WhatsApp chains in 2018 to YouTube and TikTok today. The far right grasped early how these platforms work: they reward outrage, loyalty, and constant mobilization. The left is still catching up; the gap in reach and engagement between the two sides has been one of the most consistent drivers of bolsonarismo’s success. This also explains how a candidate with little charisma can win millions of votes. In a networked political landscape, the candidate does not have to carry the message. The Bolsonaro brand, amplified by online engagement and platform algorithms, can do most of the work. ### **The Americanization of Brazil** Taken together, these four shifts produce a familiar picture. I call it the “Americanization of Brazilian politics,” a country increasingly divided along the same cleavages as America. Those lines run between the protected and the precarious, the secular and the religious, and those who still trust institutions and those who see them as enemies. Separate information ecosystems deepen the divides. The parallels are striking. Lula arguably faces the same problems that sank the Democrats in 2024: he is an aging incumbent struggling to safeguard democratic institutions, with respectable economic numbers that voters do not feel in their own lives and a message that is often mistaken for a defense of a corrupt system. Bolsonaro Jr., meanwhile, draws on similar grievances, faith-based identity, and anti-system rage that carried Trump back to the White House. In fact, he openly courts Trump as his model and patron. This Americanization has pushed the New Republic beyond repair. If Bolsonaro Jr. wins on Oct. 25, he could count on the support of close to a quarter of members of each house of Congress, dramatically reducing the costs of coalition-building. He would also be able to appoint four of the Supreme Court’s 11 justices, and could seek to fulfill his promise to pursue impeachment of some sitting justices. Unlike his father, he would not have to fight the institutions. He could reshape Brazil to look more and more like Trump’s America. In my view, the biggest lesson of Brazil’s national elections is that voters were not just voting for Bolsonaro Jr. They were voting against a political order that had stopped speaking to them. The far right offered them a language, a community, and channels of communication that other political forces had long neglected. Brazil’s democrats lost this election long before Sunday, and winning them back will require more than defending the old pact. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/10/07/brazil-lula-new-republic-trump-election-runoff-bolsonaro/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/10/07/brazil-lula-new-republic-trump-election-runoff-bolsonaro/"},"headline":"How the Unraveling of Brazil’s Social Contract Paved the Way for Bolsonaros","datePublished":"2026-10-08T10:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-07T18:27:58.190Z","description":"Over the past decade, Brazil’s social fabric and institutions have been transformed in ways that have enabled the rise and the return of the Bolsonaros.","url":"https://time.com/article/2026/10/07/brazil-lula-new-republic-trump-election-runoff-bolsonaro/","keywords":["World"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c7d5662a2e2ff61/6ac6254bc7c47f4b6b91efa3/GettyImages-2298112948.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Guilherme Casarões","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/guilherme-casar-es/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c7d5662a2e2ff61/6ac6254bc7c47f4b6b91efa3/GettyImages-2298112948.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"GettyImages-2298112948.jpg","caption":"","creditText":"Luis Robayo-AFP via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/10/07/brazil-lula-new-republic-trump-election-runoff-bolsonaro/","name":"How the Unraveling of Brazil’s Social Contract Paved the Way for Bolsonaros"}}]}] ```