The rise of Portuguese far-right, explained by a single book.
Why people don't care about a party, only about a leader.
A week ago, Portugal underwent elections for the Parliment.
André Ventura and his party “Chega!”, the icon of the Portuguese far-right, won 20% of the votes. Even though this was a huge number, to a lot of people “in the online world” didn’t come out as a surprise.
Much like in the rest of Europe, the rise of the far-right in Portugal is a highly complex and nuanced issue. Personally, I believe part of it stems from other parties' lack of focus on critical topics such as immigration, education, and healthcare. Applying Tyler Cowen’s idea of “average being over” to political landscapes in Europe, true moderation is disappearing, making people move to extremes. And as a wise uncle told me on a WhatsApp group chat about this, “Society has turned right”. Unfortunately, too much.
I want to believe, much like other people from both left and right wings, that a lot of these votes are protest votes. People want to be heard, they’re worried about issues that other parties seem to ignore, but I think there’s a different layer that shocked a lot of people.
A lot of people in Ventura’s party have been facing legal issues. From the 58 elected, 23 had some kind of issue with the law. Portuguese media talked extensively about it, and comedians roasted the hell out of those politicians. And yet, this was irrelevant when it came to voting.
I believe this particular issue can be understood by reading “The Cult of Personality” by Annie Murphy Paul, where she argues that the way we relate with people has changed since personality tests were introduced in our society.
Because of this “worshipping of personality,” we started to judge and categorize individuals based on superficial traits and personality rather than action or broader contexts.
A Leader’s Persona Matters More Than Reality
Currently, our society is heavily shaped by “personality-driven media”. Everyone should have a personal brand, everyone should build an audience based on their own thoughts (to be fair, I do believe that this is a good thing, when done properly).
The only issue with it is that it often reduces complex individuals to a simplified version of themselves, more aligned with familiar archetypes than with their real, nuanced identities. If every single politician had to write a blog or have a long podcast, we would see different facets of it, but because they don’t, what we see is a very small representation of who they are.
People are drawn to leaders who reflect the traits they aspire to embody. If a leader presents those qualities (even through a superficial or misleading plan), voters will overlook the rest of the party.
They don’t care about what everyone else is doing; they vote for a specific persona, embodied by a leader.
Superficial Defeats Substantive
In her book, Annie argues, as I mentioned, that personality tools and narratives favor static identities over dynamic ones.
“You’re X and you shall remain X forever” kind of mentality. There must be a box where you can fit and that you shall never leave.
This is why people on the left were surprised with the rise of Ventura. They have him in a box. His voters also have him in a box, just a very different one.
Branding is now more important than governance. Social media clips matter more than actual discourses and debates.
When a leader builds a strong media persona, voters will judge him based on that image rather than on his actual accountability, let alone the accountability of his circle.
Personality as Moral Justification
This is the last idea that really resonated with me last week, looking at the results.
As you explore different personality systems, you’ll quickly realize that they impact your perception of those around you. If you ever took a moment to do a Meyers-Briggs test and got a combination of four letters, say ENTJ, you know that you will look at your life and your actions and use those letters to justify them. “Oh, that’s why I do this! I’m an INFP!”
If actions are justified by personality, societal roles, or even hierarchies will also suffer from this misconception. Ventura understood this. As a leader, if he keeps portraying a certain image, people will care about him and not everyone else in the party. They will even allow certain mismacthes between their morals and the actions he does, because of his personality.
The hidden danger of this “personality cult” is that it changes the way we interact with people, sure, but above all, with Truth. It leads to poor choices, a lack of critical judgment, and blind following of emotional recognition.
People stop caring about a party, they care about a person.
I do not know what the future holds for the next few years, but I do know that Truth must be a central pillar of whatever new version of Portugal we build.