A week after Mauricio Macri took office as president of Argentina, Kirchnerism circulated a “K micro militancy manual” instructing how to “resist” the new government.
Among the resistance techniques, those that used consumption and consumer spheres to undermine the legitimacy and resources of the ruling party and its supporters stood out, for example by intervening with drawings or phrases in the newspapers consulted in Buenos Aires bars, carrying out protest drills or theatrical performances to raise awareness in supermarkets, boycotting businesses owned by Macri supporters or - on the contrary - buying products aligned with Kirchnerism.
The private and consumer arena – associated with alienation by public interest and politics by Kirchnerism – were suddenly projected as an enthusiastic trench.
The extension of partisan conflict to the world of consumption and brands is not the privilege of center-left populism.
The Brazilian extreme right mobilized sympathizers for the benefit of businesses whose owners publicly adhered to Bolsonarism, favoring eating hamburgers and shrimp in Madero and Coco Bambu networks respectively, buying clothes and fabrics in Havan stores, decorating the house with furniture from Sierra Moveis, whose owners went beyond expressing sympathies for the former president and ended up being investigated for conspiring and financing the attempted coup d'état on January 8, 2023, whose beneficiary would be Jair Bolsonaro.
That dynamic extended to other areas.
Sympathizers of progressive options shy away from musical rhythms considered Bolsonarist such as “sertanejo” and “pagode”, associated with right-wing heart groups such as agribusiness, trucker unionism and favela controlling militias.
The right-wingers did the same with theater artists and musicians who opposed Bolsonaro's authoritarianism between 2018-2022.
This politicization of private spheres reached certain chocolate brands propagated by influencers critical of Bolsonaro such as Felipe Neto.
Political scientists Felipe Nunes and Thomas Trauman label this invasion of the Brazilian table, closet and home by partisan criteria of “calcification” of political polarization, an incontestable expression that partisan antagonisms jumped to the level of feelings and everyday life.
This practice, better known as “political consumption,” using purchasing power to pursue political or ethical objectives, has been in practice for decades in Latin America and aims to citizenize or politicize relationships with companies and organizations with the intention of influencing them to follow values. and defend policies favorable to the desired model of society.
It is worth remembering the politicized protests against Argentine banks during the corralito after 2001, the harangues against buying Shell and Esso gasoline by former president Kirchner in the mid-2000s, the self-proclamation as “prosecutors of (former president) Sarney” in Brazilian supermarkets to control inflation in the 1980s) or the boycotts against Zara in Brazil in the early 2010s for the use of slave labor.
Surveys conducted by the consulting firm Market Analysis reveal that already at the beginning of the 21st century, 26% of Brazilians rewarded corporations or brands for their social, environmental or ethical behavior.
That percentage declined during the economic boom under the PT government, but as the economy stagnated and the country became more partisanly polarized, the use of political consumption grew again: 29% before the pandemic;
32% today, at the beginning of 2024. In other words: one in three Brazilians rewarded (in the previous twelve months) a company or brand for its political or socio-environmental positions.
Ways to reward include buying products, speaking well of brands and companies, and recommending them to third parties.
But political consumption also involves punishing these agents when they maintain behaviors perceived as undesirable.
This boycott takes different forms: stop buying, speak ill of brands, associate them with negative events and even disseminate information to harm their reputation and public image.
Over the last 25 years, the boycott of companies has attracted one in every 4 or 5 Brazilians (approximately 19%-24%).
In Argentina that percentage was almost double: 43% during the 2001 crisis, although it plummeted over time and today it is estimated at close to 10%.
Mexicans also started the new century willing to sprinkle their market and daily relationships with politics: 28% of them practiced punitive political consumption in 2001. Almost ten years later, that percentage had moderated somewhat, standing at 21%. .
The borders between what is politicizable and what is neutral has been swept away.
Should we be surprised at times when polarization contaminates family relationships, separates friendships and conditions romantic or intimate ties?
If partisan sympathies or antipathies regulate affections and stagnate world visions, models of society and forecasts about the future in such opposite ways, it is understandable that every aspect of life becomes a trench.
It is how emotional polarization shapes our daily lives and – naturally – our food, living room, clothing and entertainment.