Many Bolsonaro voters were uncommitted pragmatists, not committed ideologues.

Evidence

There are a lot more men than women. But there were also a lot of other people who voted for Bolsonaro. Regular Brazilians who wanted to try something else after four PT governments. They voted for him because he said he would reduce crime, or because the economy was bad and he promised something better. This group, quite large, was not particularly committed to the man or his ideology and often believed the media was exaggerating about him. They had often gotten some snippet of positive news on WhatsApp from a family member, or a church, or some other seemingly reliable source. The attitude “let’s see how he does” was particularly common among working-class people. So was the answer: “I’d vote for Lula if he were running.” — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 722

Categorization

• XREF: Distinguishing committed core from swing voters parallels the book’s earlier ‘Bolsonaristas vs. people who voted for Bolsonaro’ and the Iceland/right-wing borrowing dynamic. — connects to: Fear of the right drove anarchist anti-electoral activists to vote nonetheless — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 545; Anti-politics outsiders normally flounder and get replaced by insiders. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 735