In June 2013, millions poured into the streets across Brazil to protest a wide range of grievances, from the shoddy system of public transportation to political corruption. These demonstrations registered as one of the largest nationwide mobilizations in the country’s recent history. However, many conflicting interpretations of these events exist. One that is currently in vogue among political observers on the more orthodox left is the connection between these protests and the rise of the far right: the unfocused demands and rejection of political leadership among protestors supposedly caused the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the subsequent rise of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. This narrative portrays these protests as a singularity of depoliticized manifestations, with São Paulo taking center stage. While there may be some correlation between these protests and the delegitimization of Rousseff’s government, this interpretation too readily reduces these events into a simple causality, thereby...

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