Is fascism a “meme”? the crude as political performance in the digital age

Abstract

This article seeks to analyze some aspects of the so-called Bolsonarism, especially with regard to peculiar aspects of its performance, marked by its apparently crude and precarious character and, however, deeply violent. The hypothesis is that some of the concepts used to understand the phenomenon, such as its fascist dimension, are insufficient to account for the novel aspect of the phenomenon, marked by a deep structural relationship with the language of social networks. If in relation to his authoritarian practices, with a military bias, the president’s attitudes are unequivocally close to the previous authoritarian models, it is in the particularity of his performance that we can understand the contemporary appeal of his positions.