The Right-Wing Poor, or Politics as an Imaginary Field of Resentment

Glaucio Aranha *

Some time ago, I heard a certain buzz surrounding the publication of the book “O Pobre de Direita: A Vingança dos Bastardos” (The Right-Wing Poor: The Revenge of the Bastards), by Jessé Souza. My curiosity led me to an enjoyable reading of the work. The text revisits one of the most unsettling questions of recent Brazilian political life: why do impoverished segments of the population, subjected to persistent forms of precariousness, social humiliation, and material insecurity, adhere to political projects that, at least on the economic level, would tend to deepen their own vulnerability? Although the question has often been formulated in a tone of moral astonishment or intellectual superiority, the book treats it sociologically, approaching the problem of alleged “popular ignorance” as an affective and moral grammar of domination, constructed from the imaginary world of the resentful. The work was published by Civilização Brasileira in 2024, comprises 224 pages, and continues the author’s previous reflections on class, slavery, resentment, elites, and the symbolic reproduction of inequality in Brazil.

Jessé Souza’s point of departure seems to lie in rejecting a merely informational explanation for popular adherence to the far right. The signifier “right-wing poor,” as it appears in the book, does not refer simply to someone deceived by fake news, although disinformation undoubtedly plays a visible role in contemporary political processes. Rather, it refers to a social subject marked by wounds of recognition, accumulated experiences of disqualification, and resentments that find in conservative language a form of naming, even if such naming is politically displaced. In an interview about the book (1), the author himself associates this adherence with the exploitation of social vulnerabilities, especially when the anger produced by precariousness fails to find a structural reading capable of identifying its mechanisms of production.

One aspect that particularly drew my attention in the work lies precisely in the way Jessé attempts to understand the form contemporary politics adopts in order to operate through the affective organization of wounded identities. In this sense, the far right would not need to convince poor people that the financial market will save them; it would merely need to offer them a narrative in which their pain finds visible, nearby, and morally condemnable culprits. The enemy, which would inhabit the abstract structure of exploitation, comes to occupy, within the imaginary of this community, “blameworthy” figures such as the neighbor, the beneficiary of public policies, the emancipated woman, the socially ascending Black person, the university student admitted through affirmative action, the teacher, the artist, the intellectual, the activist, in short, a “system” imagined as a cultural conspiracy. It is within this semiotic space that resentment acquires political energy, ceasing to be merely a private affect.

The expression “the revenge of the bastards,” the book’s subtitle, introduces an interesting dimension because it indicates a form of subjectivation marked by symbolic exclusion. The bastard would be one who belongs to society through subordination, being called upon to produce, consume, obey, and vote, while rarely being recognized as a subject endowed with full dignity. His revenge, however, is not necessarily directed against those who organize the structure of inequality to which he is subjected. On the contrary, it is captured by authoritarian leaders, churches, media outlets, influencers, and networks of sociability that translate the social suffering of these “bastards” into punitive moralism. In this sense, the book suggests that Brazilian popular conservatism may be understood as the effect of a political pedagogy of resentment, in which social pain is literate in the language of punishment.

There is, within this argument, a possible proximity to Axel Honneth (2003), although Jessé Souza maintains his own interpretive framework. The idea is that humiliation, when it fails to encounter institutional mediations capable of producing recognition, may reorganize itself as hostility toward groups perceived as “unduly favored.” From this perspective, the resentful subject does not seek only material goods or benefits, but rather an imaginary recomposition of hierarchies. At this point, Jessé Souza’s analysis proves particularly fruitful for thinking about post-2016 Brazil, when the erosion of redistributive policies, the economic crisis, the delegitimization of institutional politics, and the judicial and media spectacularization of public morality created an environment conducive to the recoding of popular frustration into anti-Petism, anti-leftism, anti-scientism, and anti-intellectualism.

It is worth emphasizing, however, that the book’s hypothesis also raises certain tensions because, by emphasizing resentment as an explanatory key, it risks reducing the plurality of conservative adhesions to a relatively homogeneous affective structure. Thus, the category of the “right-wing poor” functions effectively as a provocative force, although it may encompass very distinct trajectories: precarious workers, indebted small entrepreneurs, peripheral evangelicals, rural residents, police officers, app-based drivers, homemakers, hyperconnected youth, racialized subjects, and social segments that move between economic informality and aspirations for social distinction. As highlighted in the academic review by Iago Bezerra Ulisses (2025), the work seeks to characterize this subject through the question of what constitutes him, emphasizing his electoral adherence to the far right in contexts such as Bolsonarism.

The most productive criticism, therefore, may not consist in rejecting the category, but rather in refining it. The “right-wing poor,” in my view, would be less a fixed sociological identity and more a subjective position produced by specific historical and cultural conditions. This position emerges when material precariousness encounters the desire for moral distinction, when experiences of abandonment are reinterpreted as threats of status loss, or when religious faith becomes articulated with a grammar of cultural warfare. All these conditions fit within the umbrella of the neoliberal promise of entrepreneurship, which presents itself as symbolic compensation for the absence of substantive citizenship. Thus, the book helps us understand that the far right does not speak to the pocketbook, but to wounded self-esteem, social shame, fear of downward mobility, and the need to belong to a moral community imagined as pure, orderly, and persecuted.

Another relevant point is the centrality that Jessé Souza assigns to the racial dimension. Based on interviews given by the author, racism appears as a profound foundation of the moralistic turn that feeds the Brazilian far right, going beyond explanations centered solely on economics or customs. This thesis is consistent with the author’s own intellectual trajectory, which has long investigated slavery as a formative matrix of Brazilian inequality. The book’s contribution lies in showing that racism extends beyond explicit prejudice, functioning as a moral economy of distinction that defines who deserves to rise, who must obey, who may speak, who must be silenced, and who will be perceived as a threat when occupying spaces once reserved for elites and white middle classes.

A more uncomfortable dimension of the argument, in this sense, lies in suggesting that part of popular adherence to the right is born from aspirational identification with the values of dominant groups. The “right-wing poor,” even while not belonging to the elite, feels part of it through a desire to belong to the elite’s world; for this reason, he internalizes elite morality, its aversion to distributive conflict, its punitive view of poverty, and its belief that social failure is an individual fault. This internalization, however, does not occur in the abstract, being taught daily through the media, the market, certain forms of religiosity, the culture of merit, and a school system that often fails to provide critical tools for interpreting the social structure.

Jessé Souza’s work is therefore also of interest to the fields of education, communication, and cultural studies. What is at stake is a struggle over the interpretation of experience. Whoever names social pain governs that pain politically. If precariousness is named as the fault of “communism,” “corruption,” “gender ideology,” “privilege,” or “human rights,” the political energy of indignation will be directed toward substitute targets. If, on the other hand, precariousness is understood as the effect of historical inequalities, economic decisions, forms of exploitation, and racial hierarchies, indignation may be reorganized into critical consciousness. The difference between these directions lies in the symbolic mediations that render certain interpretations emotionally acceptable.

It must be acknowledged that Jessé Souza’s style tends toward public intervention, being less neutral and more combative. This may discomfort readers who expect a dispassionate sociology, although such an expectation is itself worthy of discussion. The fact remains that his writing possesses the virtue of making visible power relations that Brazilian liberal discourse frequently softens. Nevertheless, the same polemical force may produce hasty generalizations, especially when complex categories such as people, elites, the middle class, evangelicals, or the poor appear as relatively cohesive blocs. The analytical challenge lies in preserving critical sharpness without losing the empirical heterogeneity of the subjects under study.

Without a doubt, The Right-Wing Poor offers a relevant opportunity to reflect upon Brazilian democracy in its current crisis. The text suggests that the far right grows stronger when it succeeds in appropriating the suffering and resentment of poor people, transforming such affects into identity, obedience, and votes. In this scenario, politics functions as a mode of symbolic administration of humiliation, resignifying hatred, rancor, and frustration as cultural identification and belonging. Perhaps this is why the work is uncomfortable for many readers, since it compels progressive audiences to abandon the easy explanation according to which the conservative poor are merely ignorant, alienated, or manipulated. Manipulation certainly exists, but it becomes effective only because it rests upon real experiences of abandonment, fear, shame, and the desire for recognition, as well as upon the active willingness of right-wing poor voters to give meaning to their emptiness and symbolic abandonment.

The book’s greatest merit, in my view, lies in relocating the question of inequality to the plane of social subjectivity, suggesting that Brazilian political struggles are also decided through the ways in which individuals interpret their own pain. The criticism that could be directed at the author, in turn, resides in the need to broaden the listening to the internal variations of this universe, preventing the category of the “right-wing poor” from becoming more explanatory than demonstrative. Even so, the work fulfills a relevant and necessary intellectual function, compelling us to consider that democracy will not be rebuilt solely through sound economic indicators, social programs, or informational campaigns, although all these elements remain necessary. It will also depend upon a profound struggle for dignity, recognition, and the reconstruction of the country’s moral imagination.

Note

(1) https://ihu.unisinos.br/categorias/644223-o-pobre-de-direita-a-vinganca-dos-bastardos-o-que-explica-a-adesao-dos-ressentidos-a-extrema-direita-entrevista-com-jesse-souza

References

HONNETH, Axel. The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2003.

SOUZA, Jessé. The Right-Wing Poor: The Revenge of the Bastards. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2024.

INSTITUTO HUMANITAS UNISINOS. “The Right-Wing Poor: The Revenge of the Bastards”: Interview with Jessé Souza. São Leopoldo: IHU, 2024.

RECORD. The Right-Wing Poor. Rio de Janeiro: Grupo Editorial Record, 2024.

ULISSES, Iago Bezerra. What Constitutes the Right-Wing Poor? Centúrias, 2025.

* Glaucio Aranha – He is an Adjunct Professor at the NUTES Institute of Education in Sciences and Health (NUTES), at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), working at the Educational Video Laboratory (LVE). Extension Coordinator (NUTES/UFRJ). Vice-Coordinator of Undergraduate Studies (NUTES/UFRJ). He holds a degree in Law from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), a master’s degree in Communication, Image and Information (area: New Communication and Information Technologies), and a PhD in Letters (area: Comparative Literature), both from Fluminense Federal University (UFF); Specialist in Integrated Communication Management (UNILEYA). He works as lead researcher of the research group Cognition, Language and Audiovisual in Semiotic Systems (CLASS). He is co-leader, in partnership with Prof. Dr. Alfred Sholl-Franco (IBCCF/UFRJ), of the research group Neuroeduc – Center for Studies in Neurosciences and Education. He is an associate researcher in the program Sciences and Cognition – Center for Scientific Dissemination and Neuroscience Teaching, at UFRJ (CeC-NuDCEN/IBCCF/UFRJ), where he develops studies on semiotics and neuroeducation. He worked at the Judicial Administration School (DIEPE/ESAJ), of the Court of Justice of Rio de Janeiro (2001 to 2020). He has experience in the areas of media studies, semiotics, mass aesthetics, literary theory, and scientific dissemination. Member of the scientific association Organization Sciences and Cognition (OCC), the Brazilian Association of Linguistics (ABRALIN), the Brazilian Association of Medical Education (ABEM), and the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA). Research interests: 1) Telehealth, video simulation, and audiovisual mediations in care and health education; 2) Philosophy of Education and technological representations in science and health education; 3) Technoscientific imaginaries and meaning-making in education and public communication in health. Lattes CV: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1047823602449101. Personal website: www.glaucioaranha.com.