The defeat of Donald Trump is not just an electoral defeat. It expresses the failure of a style of government, which can be called Trumpism because it was reproduced in other places, starting with Brazil.

Trump and Jair Bolsonaro were alternative models of government from the right within the right. The right was in crisis, as it adopted the neoliberal model. Given that this model concentrates wealth, it promotes only the interests of financial capital and inequality, without the ability to obtain social support bases that allow governments with political stability. The traditional right was losing elections and revealing an inability to combine the neoliberal model with political force.

Trumpism appeared as a new form of political leadership, which sought to collect accumulated criticism against liberal democracy, against parliaments, against the Judiciary, against the media, but with an extreme right-wing perspective. He intended to capitalize on the erosion of politics, proposing a new way of doing politics, supposedly without corruption.

In this way, Trumpism managed to rebuild the field of political debate, with a specific support base, and put other interpretations on the defensive. It polarized political life around political leaders and their governments, with an aggressive style, statements against the consensus existing up to that moment and causing scandal in public opinion. It was intended to express the "silent majority" mentioned by Richard Nixon, who would have been silent, but rebelled against the liberalization of customs, against human rights, against political democratization, against the protection of the environment, against defense movements of women´s rights, blacks, youth, LGBT. Sectors that would be recognized in the extremely conservative statements of these new leaders.

Trump was the candidate to whom the American right appealed, against the will of the leadership of the Republican Party, imposing himself as an outsider, through the media. He prevailed over the Republican Party, won the Electoral College elections, preventing the continuation of the Obama administration with Hillary Clinton.

He imposed a style of conflict, especially with the media, considered as enemies, constituting a radicalized base of support, which was joined by sectors that felt orphaned by a political system and an economic model that did not contemplate them. He gathered his base of support with his speech, but deepened the divisions in society as a whole.

It was a highly successful political style in its emergence, with its criticism directed at other sniper styles. It worked, until he came to government and allowed his words to be confronted with his actions.

This year´s election campaign was Trump´s moment of truth. He ended up defeated, although with a large vote, because he was judged by the government that he did, unable to combat the pandemic, for the denial that characterizes these leaders, as well as for the denial of human rights, and discrimination.

His defeat shows the failure of Trumpism and points to a similar future for Bolsonaro. The Republican Party will condemn itself to suicide if it intends to keep Trump as its leader. A politician who wears out even more with the attitude he has in the face of his electoral defeat. In addition, Trumpism can serve as a style of government, but it does not serve to be opposition.

Something different is that the extreme right has come to stay in the political field, both in the United States and in Brazil, as a political and ideological current. But it will lose much of its appeal for having failed as a government. The right wing will have to appeal again to its traditional parties and candidates. It may be that the far right continues to polarize against the left, but without the attraction it had when they were snipers.

The votes that Trump had are not enough to define his continuity as leader of the North American right. His image wears out every day that he does not accept his defeat. The important leaders of the Republican Party publicly differ from him, because they know that it is not a sustainable position for the party. The party has half the governors of the United States, who cannot govern in a position like Trump´s.

The right used the alternative of Trumpism, without being able to make successful governments, which are the heritage that a political current has left. As an opposition force, Trumpism worked, but it failed the test of being a government and tends to lose prominence as a political alternative.