Anatomy of polarization and communicational barbarism 89 Bolsonaro’s statement “Let’s shoot the ‘petralhada’,” cheered by his supporters during the 2018 presidential cam- paign (Ribeiro, 2018), stands out as one of the expressions of this desire for the elimination of the opponent, endorsed on a daily basis by the Bolsonarist mediasphere at the discursive lev- el but which, several times during the electoral period, material- ized into physical violence, even targeting children (BandNews, 2022; G1, 2022). Political violence caused the deaths of at least fifteen people during the 2022 elections, five of them during the weekend of the second round of the elections alone (Anjos et alii, 2022). This escalation of violence stemmed from the intense polarization within the context of the presidential elections, dis- tancing itself from the context of healthy political debate that is necessary for the democratic process. The phenomenon of polarization should not be confused with the simple debate of opposing posi- tions, however vehement. In polarization, there is no debate, or it leads to disconnection and symbolic violence – which, depending on the circum- stances, can escalate to physical violence (Braga, 2020, p. 304). Biopolitical hatred, on the other hand, comes close to what Rocha (2021a) characterizes as elements of far-right rhet- oric within the Bolsonaro mediasphere: nullifying disqualification and hyperbolic self-proclamation. According to the author, these elements were first developed by Olavo de Carvalho and later disseminated by his followers. Ground zero of the rhetoric of hatred, the genesis and apocalypse of the Olavist technique, nullifying disqualification reduces the ideological opponent to such an absolute other that they become in- distinguishable from pure nothingness, a nobody from nowhere. The effect is frightening because it authorizes the complete dehumanization of any- one who doesn’t mirror my own convictions. And since it’s a technique – never forget that! nullifying disqualification, as perfected by Olavo de Carvalho, was learned and multiplied by the myriad of right-
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