Flávio Bolsonaro’s political and religious shielding

Corruption can offer politicians a peculiar protection: the company of other scandals. An isolated complaint usually requires some explanation. However, surrounded by dozens of similar news, it runs the risk of becoming just one more. Excess information can produce the effect that a lack of information has always had: reducing the ability to collect.

This is a hypothesis to understand a paradox of the Brazilian election. The outrage over politics ended up favoring Flávio Bolsonaro, despite the series of issues he needs to clarify.

The mud, instead of sinking his candidacy, in a way helped to sustain it.

One of the mechanisms starts with something banal: getting informed costs time. To follow an investigation, voters need to distinguish suspicions from evidence and understand the stage of the process. It also needs to evaluate explanations that often arrive wrapped in legal language. All of this competes with work and daily emergencies.

In the face of successive news, a shortcut appears: "Everyone is involved." The phrase offers intellectual relief. It dispenses with comparisons between conduct and transforms individual responsibilities into a generic characteristic of the policy. Therefore, each new complaint starts to confirm the previous conclusion, without necessarily changing the assessment of those who appear in it.

However, see how ironic such reasoning is, since the belief that everyone is equal especially benefits those who would have the most to lose from a careful comparison. If any difference disappears in a collective suspicion, the cost of a serious episode may end up diluted in general wear and tear.

So, the desire for change becomes detached from the demand for integrity. For part of the electorate, change means removing Lula. Thus, Flávio receives, due to his position in the dispute, a renewal credential that his history does not justify. Furthermore, a politician who sees little difference between clarifying and diverting the conversation has less reason to be accountable.

Thus, opposition to Lula becomes a certificate of quality issued without audit. The voter can reject it for several legitimate reasons. However, is it right to grant Flávio immunity?

The support of some evangelical pastors adds religious protection to this political shield. By presenting Flávio as chosen by God, these leaders lend their spiritual authority to a candidate who should answer for his own conduct.

Note the contradiction: how can we reconcile the moral rigor preached to the faithful with the indulgence offered to the ally? If the pulpit demands that others acknowledge their sins, why would blessing the candidate dispense with explanations about their past?

The anointing coming from the pulpit works like a seal that eliminates the need to examine biography. The faithful who trust their pastor tend to accept the nomination without checking the nominee's history, and suspicions begin to sound like persecution of those who defend the faith. So, a curious arrangement is created in which a candidate surrounded by unchristian episodes receives the blessing of those who preach honesty.

On this altar, sin seems to weigh less than political expediency. And, in the end, surveillance continues to produce news, but electoral punishment becomes less likely.

The text is a tribute to the song "Jesus Cristo", performed by Maria Bethânia.