The election of Donald Trump in the US, the rise of the Gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) in France, the Brexit and the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil seem to be completely different events without any visible connection between them, but under the surface one can notice that, in reality, they are very similar phenomena with a starting point in the cultural wars that have swept the West in recent years.

Let’s start with Brazil. In June 2013, Brazil was taken by an unprecedented wave of protests that may have been the last in the Western hemisphere to adopt a non-identitarian character, being still rooted in class issues and on eminently political agendas (in the sense of demanding effective changes based not on individual identities, but on notions of class and of social rights).

In fact, the 2013 protests were attended by individuals from a wide range of backgrounds — in every respect, social, racial, cultural, class, but especially ideological, perhaps its most controversial and least understood element — becoming something far greater than those who took to the streets could have imagined then.

Full article at Best Damn Writing’s website. Date of publication: 05/11/2020.