• World
    • Africa
    • Asia Pacific
    • Central & South Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America & Caribbean
    • Middle East & North Africa
    • North America
  • Coronavirus
  • Politics
    • US Election
    • US politics
    • Donald Trump
    • Brexit
    • European Union
    • India
    • Arab world
  • Economics
    • Finance
    • Eurozone
    • International Trade
  • Business
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Startups
    • Technology
  • Culture
    • Entertainment
    • Music
    • Film
    • Books
    • Travel
  • Environment
    • Climate change
    • Smart cities
    • Green Economy
  • Global Change
    • Education
    • Refugee Crisis
    • International Aid
    • Human Rights
  • International Security
    • ISIS
    • War on Terror
    • North Korea
    • Nuclear Weapons
  • Science
    • Health
  • 360 °
  • The Interview
  • In-Depth
  • Insight
  • Quick Read
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Interactive
  • My Voice
  • About
  • FO Store
Sections
  • World
  • Coronavirus
  • US Election
  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Sign Up
  • Login
  • Publish

Make Sense of the world

Unique insight from 2,000+ contributors in 80+ Countries

Close

The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy Thrives in Bolsonaro’s Brazil

The cultural Marxism conspiracy is fundamentally anti-egalitarian because it portrays any form of social progress or economic equality as evil and poisonous.
By Andrew Woods • Oct 16, 2019
cultural Marxism conspiracy, cultural Marxism news, cultural Marxism Brazil, Bolsonaro cultural Marxism, far-right conspiracies, right-wing conspiracy theories, alt-right cultural Marxism conspiracy, what is cultural Marxism, Brazil far right, Jair Bolsonaro news

© nitpicker / Shutterstock

“Cultural Marxism” is a right-wing conspiracy theory that accuses the Frankfurt School — comprised of thinkers like Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse — of emigrating to the United States of America in the 1930s to implant the “Marxist” ideologies of political correctness, multiculturalism and feminism. Paleoconservatives, such as Paul Weyrich and Patrick Buchanan, promoted this theory to mischaracterize the accomplishments of the New Left, the civil rights movement and women’s liberation groups in the 1960s as illegitimate and un-American. Notably, the far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik cited cultural Marxism as one of the justifications for his devastating attacks in Norway in 2011.

Over the past decade, several academics and journalists have studied the role of the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory within various radical-right movements. Yet the scope of their analyses remains confined to Anglophone examples. Although John E. Richardson and Jérôme Jamin strive to theorize cultural Marxism as a “transnational discourse” or “global conspiracy theory,” they overlook the use of this conspiracy theory in Latin America, especially in Brazil.

Liberating Brazil

In his inauguration speech, President Jair Bolsonaro announced that he planned to liberate Brazil from “socialism, inverted values, the bloated state, and political correctness.” During his presidential campaign, Bolsonaro informed his supporters that cultural Marxism and its “derivatives like Gramsci-ism joined with the corrupt oligarchs to undermine national and Brazilian family values.” He casts cultural Marxism as the antagonist in his narrative of supposed cultural decline and portrays himself as the savior of traditional Brazilian identity and society.

In this way, Bolsonaro’s rhetoric fits Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyon’s definition of conspiracism as a “narrative form of scapegoating that frame the enemy as part of a vast insidious plot against the common good, while it valorizes the scapegoater as a hero for sounding the alarm.” Yet Bolsonaro was not the first right-wing Brazilian scapegoater to sound the cultural Marxism alarm.

Embed from Getty Images

In 2002, the media polemicist Ovalo de Carvalho published an article titled “Do marxismo cultural” in the conservative Brazilian newspaper O Globo, in which he describes “cultural Marxism” as “the predominant influence in Western universities, media, show business, and publishing.” Carvalho proclaims that the Frankfurt School used its “macabre dogmas” to classify Western culture as a “disease” and spread an “atmosphere of suspicion, confusion, and hatred.” Carvalho’s scaremongering polemic casts progressives as agents of a secret plot to destroy Brazilian culture, language and religious faith.

Later that year, the left-wing Worker’s Party (PT) under the leadership of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (known popularly as “Lula”) won the general election. Carvalho regarded Lula’s social welfare policies as an inexcusable expansion of state power and warned that PT would transform Brazil into a totalitarian socialist state. Subsequently, the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory became a weapon to demonize Lula and the PT.

Despite the PT’s impressive election victories between 2002 and 2014, their popularity started to wane from 2010 onward. Several corruption scandals, such as Operation Car Wash, led to general disillusionment. Bolsonaro, Carvalho and other Brazilian right-wing figures took advantage of these widespread feelings of antipetismo (anti-PT sentiment) to perpetuate the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory.

Deadly Threat

In a 2019 article for the paleoconservative literary magazine The New Criterion, Brazil’s foreign minister Ernesto Araújo declares that Bolsonaro’s electoral victory represents the downfall of Lula’s regime of cultural Marxism. According to Araújo, the PT enforced a “globalist” agenda that led to “the promotion of gender ideology,” “the humiliation of Christians” and “the displacement of parents by the government as the provider of ‘values’ to children.” Araújo interprets the PT’s legislative and judicial efforts to end discrimination against LGBTQ as a deliberate assault on traditional Christian “family values.”

Additionally, his remarks on the government’s alleged displacement of parental authority appear to be a veiled attack on Lula’s popular and effective Bolsa Familia(family allowance) program. Under the policy, impoverished families received a monthly grant for each of their children — up to a maximum of three — to attend school and get proper vaccinations. The policy benefitted some 52 million people. Araújo’s article demonstrates that members of Bolsonaro’s administration perceive increased social mobility and access to education as deadly threats to the traditional hierarchies of Brazilian society.   

Education is a core theme of the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. Just as Weyrich and Buchanan claim that the Frankfurt School infected American college campuses with the virus of political correctness, Bolsonaro’s administration asserts that Brazilian universities have become infested with “cultural Marxism” and “gender ideology.” Whereas Weyrich and Buchanan blame Herbert Marcuse, Bolsonaro incriminates the late Brazilian radical educator Paolo Freire.

According to the Brazilian radical right, Freire injected Marxist ideology into the public schooling system during his stint as municipal secretary of education in Sao Paulo between 1989 and 1992. Consequently, Bolsonaro insinuates that Lula’s modest educational reforms, such as funding for underprivileged Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian university students, are part of a secret plot to convert young students to Marxism.  

Free media cannot run for free

Unlike social media, we do not sell you advertising. We do not hide content behind a paywall. Instead, we rely on donors like you. Support our crowdfunding campaign to reach 1,001 monthly donors by signing up now.


In Bolsonaro’s administration, the cultural Marxism conspiracy motivates policy. Earlier this year, Brazil’s Minister of Education Abraham Weintraub threatened to withdraw funding from sociology and philosophy departments in universities. Several days later, he announced 30% cuts to funding for federal universities. Weintraub’s policies are part of a strategy to bully professors and students into quiescence and conformity. Incidentally, Weintraub endorses the witch-hunting tactic of recording the lectures of “cultural Marxist” professors.

The Brazilian people objected to these unjustifiable budget cuts. In response to Weintraub’s pronouncements, an estimated 1.5 million people attended countrywide protests. Widespread resistance to Bolsonaro’s regime demonstrates that many Brazilians do not believe that social welfare policies and progressive ideas are part of a malignant Marxist conspiracy. The cultural Marxism conspiracy is fundamentally anti-egalitarian, because it portrays any form of social progress or economic equality as evil and poisonous. Moments of resistance like these intimate that the radical right, and its patently flawed conspiracy theories, may be losing its allure.

*[The Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right is a partner institution of Fair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Share Story
CategoriesInsight, Latin America & the Caribbean, Politics, South America News, World Leaders News, World News Tagsalt-right cultural Marxism conspiracy, Bolsonaro cultural Marxism, Brazil far right, cultural Marxism Brazil, cultural Marxism conspiracy, cultural Marxism news, far-right conspiracies, right-wing conspiracy theories, what is cultural Marxism
Join our network of more than 2,000 contributors to publish your perspective, share your story and shape the global conversation. Become a Fair Observer and help us make sense of the world.

Post navigation

Previous PostPrevious Italy Evicts Steve Bannon’s Gladiators
Next PostNext Mercenaries in the Desert: The Kremlin’s Libya Game
Subscribe
Register for $9.99 per month and become a member today.
Publish
Join our community of more than 2,500 contributors to publish your perspective, share your narrative and shape the global discourse.
Donate
We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. Your donation is tax-deductible.

Explore

  • About
  • Authors
  • FO Store
  • FAQs
  • Republish
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact

Regions

  • Africa
  • Asia Pacific
  • Central & South Asia
  • Europe
  • Latin America & Caribbean
  • Middle East & North Africa
  • North America

Topics

  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Environment
  • Global Change
  • International Security
  • Science

Sections

  • 360°
  • The Interview
  • In-Depth
  • Insight
  • Quick Read
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Interactive
  • My Voice

Daily Dispatch


© Fair Observer All rights reserved
We Need Your Consent
We use cookies to give you the best possible experience. Learn more about how we use cookies or edit your cookie preferences. Privacy Policy. My Options I Accept
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Edit Cookie Preferences

The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.

As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media.

 
Necessary
Always Enabled

These cookies essential for the website to function.

Analytics

These cookies track our website’s performance and also help us to continuously improve the experience we provide to you.

Performance
Uncategorized

This cookie consists of the word “yes” to enable us to remember your acceptance of the site cookie notification, and prevents it from displaying to you in future.

Preferences
Save & Accept