Jair Bolsonaro struggling to govern for all Brazilians

When delivering his inauguration speech, President Jair Bolsonaro talked about uniting all Brazilians. He promised to look after the interests of society as a whole—not just of some privileged groups which made up his electorate. After six months, however, Mr. Bolsonaro’s increasingly paltry approval ratings show that his words haven’t translated into actions.

After six months in office, he is Brazil’s least-popular leader at this stage of his term, with 33 percent rating his administration as either “good or great.” An equal amount of people find him “bad or terrible”—with the remaining third of the population landing somewhere in the middle.

This split is not necessarily a new phenomenon. The Workers’ Party’s former marketeer, Duda Mendonça, used to say that one-third of Brazil was with the party, no matter what; another third would be against them, no matter what; and the rest would decide at the election. What is noteworthy is that the country remains in this campaign-like mood at the beginning of an administration, in what was supposed to be Mr. Bolsonaro’s honeymoon period.

Bolsonaro unable to tone...