“GOD, HOMELAND, FAMILY AND FREEDOM”: A STUDY OF BOLSONARIST DISCOURSE

Abstract

This paper analyzes the motto “God, Homeland, Family, and Freedom,” treating it as a discursive synthesis of Bolsonarism. It starts from the understanding that Bolsonarism is structured as a discursive coalition (Kaysel and Bianchi, 2025), in which heterogeneous social and political elements and actors are connection around a unifying symbolic core, expressed in its main motto. From this perspective, the articulation among the terms that compose the motto “God, Homeland, Family, and Freedom” constitutes an empty signifier, since it is the relationship established among these terms that produces a distinctive political meaning and encapsulates the discursive unity of Bolsonarism. Thus, Bolsonarist discourse articulates characteristics that the literature attributes to the far right and that allow it to be situated within this political spectrum, including nationalism, ultraliberalism, neo-patriotism, and Christian conservatism (Kaysel and Bianchi, 2025; Mudde, 2019; Sanahuja and López Burian, 2023).