At which time and space scales should we analyse Bolsonaro’s rise to power in Brazil? As the result of the long-term history of an authoritarian, conservative, racist and patriarchal society, or as part of the « crisis of occidental democracies », cause of the proliferation of demagogic extreme rights? These two interpretative lines result from the same social demand: make an unexpected, upsetting and scary event intelligible. They rely, however, on two different hypotheses: was bolsonarist neo-fascism born from deep-rooted social trends that we failed or refused to see, or from quick and unpredictable changes – what we could call “steep slope history”?