The power of farce

So, the election year is here, and the power of the farce we witnessed in 2018 will be renewed. 

Let us recall: in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx pointed to a fundamental relationship between aesthetics and politics when he stated that history repeats itself as tragedy and as farce. 

Farce is an imitation of tragedy that intensifies its effect by using the grotesque as a style. Let us remember that Alfred Jarry's farce of Ubu Roi, which in every way resembles Bolsonaro in its desire to eat and kill, was already a mocking imitation of Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. 

Tragedy and farce are two theatrical forms, but they are also aesthetic parameters of politics. If tragedy shapes the world through heroism, beauty, the sublime, and high values, farce shapes it through the opposite of all that. In this context, the opposition between Lula and Bolsonaro is evident and needs no explanation. 

The entire Bolsonaro government unfolds in a climate of farce; each of his ministers is a charlatan who destroys what he should be building, and he himself is the court jester who usurped the place of the King, imprisoned for over 500 days, with the help of a secondary character, the corrupt judge, who, with the help of the not-so-invisible hand of the Empire, decided to occupy the leading role himself. 

It's worth repeating that the Bolsonaro government is a farce that imitates the tragedy of the military dictatorship, itself a farce. Moro is a continuation of this farce, as Bolsonaro's former minister, the "Bolsonaro who knows how to use cutlery," or at least doesn't pretend to eat from a trough with a film set around it, as was exposed on social media a few days ago. Bolsonaro's cinematic production is still ahead of Globo's journalistic production, which knows very well how to construct characters and plots. However, the soap operas of journalism are not as well-made as actual soap operas, and the secret of the script—in which the corrupt man who shouts against corruption is, himself, corrupt—is too obvious to win over viewers for the next chapter. 

Before proceeding with the analysis of this narrative being constructed before the very eyes of the spectators, sewn shut with their own guts, it is necessary to bear in mind that, despite the essential disadvantage of imitation, the effect of power remains alive within it. The culture of concealment and camouflage serves aesthetic procedures, such as hair implants and false teeth currently in vogue, designer bags and clothes made in China, but also politics. However, in this treacherous game, whoever tries to appear better than they are tends to come out worse off (this applies to the entire political spectrum). 

Furthermore, let's remember that infamous, ridiculous, or grotesque characters exert power precisely through the discrediting of their discourse. Moro is good at discrediting his discourse, but he will still need to intensify his performance if he wants to take Bolsonaro's place. When an actor is chosen for a job, they are chosen precisely for their prior skills, but the reception from the masses seems to be miscalculated in this case. Fascists always underestimate the population and need to dumb them down to be able to count on them. The deception needs to be well done because the masses are malleable and can change direction if they realize that others may be right.

Thus, to be a good candidate, Moro needs a bit more charismatic appeal, something he naturally lacks and which Bolsonaro has in abundance. For the latter, it was easy; he simply had to capitalize on bad taste, which is a greater asset than ever in culture after the war against democracy. Moro resists playing this role. Despite his attempt to start speaking in a deeper voice, avoiding the vocal tone that earned him the nickname "Marreco de Maringá" (Duck of Maringá), he lacks the necessary virility demanded in this fascist moment where hysterical machismo has been quite prominent (we will discuss this in a future article). 

All the far-right figures seeking power have been striving to conform to the aesthetic standards of the grotesque or the ridiculous since 2016. In this sense, for Moro, it would be better to embrace the "duck" persona than to try to disguise it. He could win the vote of indignation or the vote of mockery that brought figures like Tiririca to power. Janaína Paschoal, Kim Kataguiri, Alexandre Frota, and so many others came to power in 2018 simply because they aligned themselves with this same aesthetic logic. 

In this context, Bolsonaro was a success after the 2016 coup by producing a kind of farce on a second scale. By embracing the sincerity of the farce, he managed to re-deceive everyone and, if not rid himself of the mark of lies, at least reshape it in his favor. For his electorate, his paradoxical "sincerity" is worth more than anything. He can commit all kinds of crimes and illegal acts and still be defended by people identified with their idol. Bolsonaro's daily lies are part of the rhetoric of disorientation that he practices so well and that works in a loop, daily renewing the stupor of his critics, as well as the ecstasy of his admirers. 

Bolsonaro doesn't pretend when he's being fake. That's the essence of authentic farce. That's why he can appear acting like a pig without losing his electorate. Therefore, as long as Moro continues trying to appear as something he's not, there will be no future for him. He needs to embrace his truth, as a good cynic should if he wants to turn cynicism into an effective technology of power. Moro needs to put on more of a show now that he no longer has Lula imprisoned, nor the spectacle of Lava Jato, to capitalize on his image as a punitive figure, as conservative society likes. Every time he's done this, he's grown in public opinion. By resisting surrendering to Moro, he's destroying his greatest potential. It's not enough to be ridiculous; one must fully commit to the role.   

The farce is the form of politics in the age of advertising reason, an aesthetic, narrative, theatrical, performative structure. It is the only way many engage in politics and come to power. And because there is a fictional bias in political farce, and not simply a lie, it becomes very difficult for the population to perceive that it is a game, a staged scene. The lie becomes explicit, the fiction is concealed, and everything becomes political technology. A political technology is a device composed of strategies and tactics, discourses and practices, entities and institutions, all united by the same principle.

If deception is a political technology, that means the game is lies, deception, and disinformation in general; hence the fake news factories, the companies that feed on hatred, an emotion that helps to create the climate of war necessary for the process of preserving power. The hate cabinet is the nation's biggest business, and there is no forecast of its downfall; on the contrary. What worked in 2018 will continue to operate in a turbocharged way in 2022. 

Therefore, at this moment, everyone must unite against the great fascist farce, but without awareness of this and caught up in often childish power games, it will not be easy to overcome the far-right and its unscrupulous tactics that reinforce the strength of the farce every day.