"EL POBRE DE DERECHA" - Jessé Souza

Summary

The video reviews Brazilian sociologist Jessé Souza’s book The Right-Wing Poor: The Revenge of the Bastards, which asks why many poor people support far-right politicians such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, despite policies that may harm them economically.

Souza argues that economic self-interest alone cannot explain these voting choices. People are also driven by the need for dignity, self-esteem, and social recognition. For many poor and precarious people, daily experiences of humiliation and exclusion are powerful political forces. Their support for the far right is therefore not simply a result of economic calculation or religious conservatism.

Souza calls this condition the “Joker syndrome,” after the film character: a poor, isolated person repeatedly humiliated at home, at work, and in public. The syndrome represents the experience of people whose insecurity and hardship are treated as personal failures. With unions, political parties, and other institutions weakened, their anger often lacks a collective channel or political program.

The video describes how far-right politics can redirect this resentment. Media concentration, disinformation, and social networks weaken public debate and blur the distinction between truth and falsehood. Far-right campaigns obscure structural causes of poverty while encouraging people to blame vulnerable groups. Meritocratic beliefs can reinforce this pattern: people may see their own hardship as evidence of personal failure, then seek scapegoats rather than directing anger at powerful interests.

Souza also examines “false moralism.” He argues that explicit racial prejudice is often recast as cultural judgment, while claims about corruption and morality can be used selectively to oppose popular inclusion. This rhetoric can unite privileged groups with parts of the precarious working class, each for different reasons, and foster hostility toward poorer people, immigrants, Black and brown people, women, and LGBT communities. In the video’s account, such moral divisions help conceal inequalities and protect elite power.

The analysis extends to global hierarchies: the Global North is often portrayed as civilized and morally superior, while the Global South is depicted as corrupt or backward. Souza argues that these narratives help legitimize domination and exploitation. Across these examples, the central claim is that convincing people they are inferior—or directing their anger toward those even more vulnerable—helps stabilize social hierarchies.

Presenters and contributors

• Presenter/narrator: Claudio Alvarez Terán
• Contributor discussed: Jessé Souza, sociologist and author of the book reviewed