Lamento Sertanejo: inclusion of the outsiders, messianic leadership and the new centrality of the northeast in Brazilian politics

In the last decade, after a long period of democratic stability, Brazil lived a process of increased political and social polarization; the country, once considered the new raising start among BRICS, is now going through one of the worst crises of his history, economically, politically and socially. Two new social cleavages appeared in national politics: on one side, Lulismo versus anti-Lulismo, on the other an increased polarization between different macroregions, based on the historical spatial inequality that characterized the Nation even before is independence. Over the course of the chapters, we will explain how two main processes are responsible of this outcome: we will focus first on the inclusion of the outsiders, both economic and cultural, and how the “extension” of citizenship to many people previously marginalized can explain Lula’s consensus, in particular in the northeast. We will also focus on Lula’s personal consensus and the transformation of his personal leadership: we will show how a union leader, member of the only collective mass party in Brazil, was able to be elected first and then embrace the tradition of messianic leaders, typical of Brazilian politics, while at the same time being an example of social mobility and cultivating a process of identification between himself and the poorest voters, in particular living in the northeast. We will show how Lula took the idea of messianic leader to a new extreme thanks to his personal trajectory and his attitude towards “martyrdom”, becoming a “demigod”. We will then analyze the consequences of the inclusion of the outsiders and Lula’s messianic leadership for the overall quality of Brazilian democracy, in an era in which many consider the country as one of the best examples of backsliding democracy.