“Extremocentrism” – the attempt to occupy all ideological spaces at the same time, targeting all audiences and reaching none – is currently experiencing increasingly obvious exhaustion. This is not an identity crisis, as some analysts tend to claim. It’s worse than that: it’s a crisis of lack of identity.
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Few people embody this logic as well as Hugo Motta, federal deputy for the state of Paraíba, president of the Chamber of Deputies and member of the Republicans. He moves like someone performing a permanent juggling act to please all audiences. The consequence is predictable: a political figure who does not mobilize, does not inspire and is not anchored in anything.
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While Motta is banking on the old thesis that people are tired of extremes, the reality of the numbers tells a different story. The ranking of the digital engagement of Brazilian politicians, today one of the most accurate thermometers of voter mood, shows that those who dominate public attention belong to the most defined groups: the far left and the far right. They are the ones who have the broadest bases, the most intense commitment and the real capacity to engage their audiences.
Anyone who believes that Brazil rejects radicalism is reading the country backwards. The numbers show exactly the opposite. Voters want clarity, identity and purpose, whether they agree with the content or not. The public prefers those who know exactly what they are, even if it’s extreme, over those who try to wear all the costumes at once.
Extremocentrism delivers something completely different: elastic discourses, positions calculated down to the millimeter and a plasticity that weakens any narrative. In Motta’s case, this translates into a clear brand. He is the politician who tries to please everyone, but who pleases no one. In a hyperconnected politics, where everything has a face, a tone and a direction, this ambiguity is not attractive. It empties.
The crisis of this strategy is not cyclical. It’s structural. In a scenario where identity is worth more than any slogan, extreme centrism proves incapable of maintaining a loyal base or competing for attention with those who take a clear position. The voter recognizes the authenticity. And he also recognizes when he’s missing.
Motta, in this context, ceases to be an exception and becomes a synthesis. It is the portrait of a political model which attempts to exist by absence and not by conviction.
Extremocentrism does not fail because it has chosen the middle ground. You fail because you choose not to define yourself. And, in today’s Brazilian politics, this has come at a high cost.
*Maurício Locks has a degree in journalism and works as a communications consultant and political strategist
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