Full article at Palladium.
On Brazil’s Election Day I was talking to Renan Santos, the Mission Party candidate for President. He had recently cast his vote in front of all the news cameras—as he sat down with us one joker asked “So who’d you vote for?”—and we were still several hours away from getting the first results. As Renan was telling us about the Mission Party’s history, he said that, to run an outsider political campaign, you have to be willing to “lose, and lose, and lose, and win.”
After twelve years of campaigning, Renan and the Free Brazil Movement had hoped that this election would be the beginning of victory, with an impressive showing in the presidential race and serious gains in the legislature. It was not to be, as we learned that night. Renan came in fourth place with 2.6 million votes, 2.2% of the total, and his party kept its single seat in the federal legislature but failed to add any more. It was a thoroughly mediocre result. The Mission Party boys are dusting themselves off and plugging along, continuing to build up the movement’s fundamentals—cadre, doctrine, mass mobilization—and get ready for next time.
As Renan tells it, the Mission Party developed as a way to continue and institutionalize the energy of mass protests against the corruption of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. After their initial goals had been achieved, the movement’s organizers, like Renan, realized there was no good reason for them to pack up and go home when their country still faced so many problems. With a bunch of quality people and free energy lying around, they began the trial-and-error process of turning this raw material into a durable organization. They are maintaining their energy—just watch any videos of their events—and not giving up.
This is the correct move in their position. There have been plenty of insurgent political parties in modern history. Most failed. The successful ones generally follow a similar pattern.
Continue reading my full article at Palladium.