Democracy is breathing again without life support.

The first article I wrote for 247, on September 16, 2019, was titled: “An Authoritarian Government of Democracy.” In it, I sought to show that, eight months into the Bolsonaro administration, there was a clear intention on the part of the president to have Brazil governed in a completely authoritarian manner.

For about three years, between that September 16th and October 30th, 2022, I held my breath, always expecting the worst, that is, the imposition of a coup that would destroy the achievements enshrined in the 1988 Federal Constitution and the Democratic Rule of Law erected from the ruins of the dictatorial regime born on March 31, 1964.

Beyond the suffering caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, exacerbated by Bolsonaro's criminal inaction, Pazuello et catervaIt was on September 7, 2021, that we came closest to transitioning from "an authoritarian government within a democracy" to an "authoritarian government." tout court"– a passage that was not carried out thanks to the resistance of the Supreme Federal Court."

This does not mean that, during the 2022 election campaign, particularly in the 28 days between the first-round results and Lula's narrow victory in the second round, we did not live with apprehension about the possibility that Bolsonaro could have turned the tide with the help of the public machine and, again, through the mass dissemination of... fake news.

Likewise, until next January 1st, with Lula's inauguration for his third presidential term, and for a period of time that is difficult to specify exactly, we will still have to live with the voices of the authoritarian sewer that have emerged since 2016 and their purposes of burying popular sovereignty and the democratic values ​​that triumphed on October 30th.

It is certain, however, that we have gone through the worst in the last 6 years, especially during the 4 years of the Bolsonaro government. It is equally certain that the reconstruction of the country in the next 4 years will require all of us to support and sustain the Lula government, as well as to criticize measures that deviate from the ideals of the democratic front that won on October 30th.

As I write my one hundredth article in this space on 247, I feel relieved to observe that our democracy has begun to breathe again, no longer with the help of machines, but with its own lungs, which are weakened by having been in contact for so long with oxygen intoxicated with fascist impurities, but which remain alive.

I conclude by giving due credit to 247 for never having interfered in any way – either in form or content – ​​with the articles I wrote on their blog, as well as with the 190 editions of Trilhas da Democracia, which I coordinated and presented on their TV channel, during these extremely difficult 4 years of resistance.

An acknowledgment that I unfortunately cannot make to the federal institution of higher education where I have worked since 2004, given that its acting rector preferred the path of imposing censorship on a journalistic video on its university TV channel rather than "exposing" Bolsonaro's name, amidst the chaos of the Covid-19 pandemic and the authoritarian pandemonium.