Algorithms, Evangelicals, and Democracy
The political landscape of the twenty-first century is no longer defined by traditional ideological battles, but by a coordinated, globalized network of far-right extremism. By examining the recent political developments in Brazil and connecting them to the deeply entrenched right-wing factions in the United States and Australia, a terrifying blueprint emerges. It is a playbook of propaganda, algorithmic manipulation, and evangelical radicalization. When we look at the trajectory of these nations, the warning signs are glaringly obvious. To understand the current threat to global democracy, we must analyze the interconnected web of political grift, religious fanaticism, and right-wing extremism.
In a recent edition of the digital culture newsletter Garbage Day, Ryan Broderick provides a chilling analysis of the 2026 Brazilian elections. He notes that the country has become the ultimate test kitchen for a new breed of techno-fascism. Through the massive expansion of right-wing evangelical content on social platforms, figures like Supreme Court Justice and pastor André Mendonça, as well as YouTube megachurch sensation Bruno Leonardo, have cultivated millions of followers. These algorithmic echo chambers bypass traditional media, directly feeding a hyper-conservative, Bolsonarista worldview to an increasingly indebted and desperate population, reshaping the entire national identity.
Broderick’s ultimate conclusion in Garbage Day is a grim wake-up call for the international left: simply outvoting these extremists is no longer a viable long-term strategy. The platforms and networks that built these far-right figures up have become far too entrenched. Brazil, which just thirty years ago was overwhelmingly Catholic, is now being aggressively swept by an evangelical wave that dictates political power. When a nation is hollowed out by online gambling, consumer debt, and algorithmic radicalization, the democratic process itself becomes compromised. It is a system fundamentally rigged to brute-force dangerous extremists into the highest offices.
This radicalization is further weaponized by historical revisionism, as highlighted in Euan Marshall’s ArtReview piece about the 2026 film Dark Horse. The film is a blatantly inaccurate, English-language biopic of jailed former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, starring QAnon-adjacent actor Jim Caviezel. Funded by a disgraced Brazilian banker embroiled in a multi-billion-dollar fraud scandal, the movie completely omits Bolsonaro’s 2022-2023 coup plot. Instead, it paints him as a hyper-masculine martyr defending his nation from globalists and Hollywood pedophiles. It is a cinematic vanity project designed explicitly to rewrite history and manufacture outrage on a massive scale.
However, as Marshall points out in ArtReview, the target audience for Dark Horse isn't necessarily Brazilian voters. Championed by US MAGA operatives like Steve Bannon, the film is designed to pump up the American right wing ahead of the midterm elections. More insidiously, it lays the narrative groundwork for potential US interference in South America by framing Lula da Silva’s legitimate government as a fraudulent regime. The movie leans heavily into evangelical absurdity, featuring characters based on real-life religious extremists who prescribe magic pills. This proves that international right-wing propaganda relies on a shared, borderline-hallucinatory cinematic universe to mobilize believers.
When you combine the algorithmic radicalization detailed in Garbage Day with the lavishly funded, reality-denying propaganda outlined in ArtReview, a stark reality comes into focus. Brazil is how a country can end up in a brutal theocracy for decades. It is not an overnight coup, but a slow, methodical poisoning of the information ecosystem. By merging megachurch evangelicalism with tech-bro algorithms and right-wing political ambitions, bad actors can fundamentally rewrite the cultural baseline of a nation. They replace democratic debate with religious absolute, paving the way for an authoritarian regime cloaked in the absolute righteousness of divine mandate.
This toxic blend of evangelical fervor and internet-born extremism is not confined to the Americas; it has deep roots in Australia. A 2019 report from The Guardian exposed that a prominent Australian QAnon conspiracy theorist, known online as BurnedSpy, was a close family friend of then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison. BurnedSpy’s wife even worked on Morrison’s staff. This individual spent his days propagating bizarre, baseless theories about deep-state plots, satanic pedophile rings, and political enemies wearing red shoes as coded signals. Furthermore, he boasted of meeting with prominent US-based QAnon figures and far-right True Blue Crew affiliates.
While Morrison denied discussing politics with BurnedSpy, the proximity is deeply alarming. Morrison, famously associated with the Hillsong megachurch, even used QAnon-adjacent dog whistles like “ritual sexual abuse” in national addresses. Scott Morrison was a signed up member of exactly the type of crazy evangelical churches driving the push towards dictatorship in Brazil and the US right now. The Pentecostal networks he navigated are the exact same strain of religious institutions that have weaponized their congregations into political armies in São Paulo and Texas. Ultimately, the evidence proves Scott Morrison was close with MAGA level of crazies.
The normalization of these fringe beliefs by former leaders has emboldened the loudest, most extreme voices in Australian politics today. We often treat Pauline Hanson’s One Nation as a uniquely Australian political quirk, a reactionary party clinging to outdated grievances. But when viewed through the lens of this global techno-fascist movement, their true nature is undeniable. One Nation ARE MAGA crazies. They employ the exact same rhetoric, stoke the exact same algorithmic culture wars, and exploit the exact same evangelical and conspiratorial fears as Bolsonaro’s loyalists and Donald Trump’s most fanatical supporters. They are part of the same machine.
To safeguard our democratic institutions, we must recognize that these distinct political events are intrinsically linked. The tragedy currently unfolding in Brazil is a blaring warning siren for the rest of the world. It shows precisely what happens when conservative leaders, backed by corrupt finance and radical religious institutions, successfully capture the digital platforms that control public discourse. The connections from the MAGA propaganda machine in the United States, through the evangelical techno-fascism conquering Brazil, all the way down to Scott Morrison’s inner circle and the daily rhetoric of One Nation, are impossible to ignore. Voting alone will not save us if we blindly refuse to dismantle this global extremist movement today.
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