The time has come to stop being afraid of fascism.

By Moisés Mendes, for 247

They didn't want Lula to parade in an open car because he could get shot. He paraded anyway. They didn't want him to go up the ramp of the Planalto Palace. He went up anyway.

The fear instilled in Lula and the people who were going to Brasília came not only from far-right leaders and terrorists. It also originated, with surprising emphasis, from sectors of the left.

But Lula did not succumb to terror and did not heed the advice of those who claimed to be by his side as advisors of common sense and the ever-opportunistic "I'm-telling-you-warning" type.

Lula did what needed to be done, and the people were by his side the whole time, despite the climate created by those spreading fear.

In his speech to Congress, Lula recalled that the 2002 election had also been like that. Hope needed to overcome all fears.

He recalled that he was there again, elected and certified for a third term, because unfounded fears had been overcome.

But the widespread fear in 2022 was no longer the same fear as two decades earlier.

The fear surrounding the first election stemmed from an effort to instill insecurity in the face of a left-wing worker's third attempt to reach the presidency. The right wing spread the word that they shouldn't trust that bearded man.

The fear of 2022, which predates the 2016 coup against Dilma, is what disseminates the various forms of fascist terror riding on the coattails of the Lava Jato operation.

Brazilians have become afraid of Bolsonaro, his sons, the military, the militias, and the entire power structure rigged around the man who threatened to kill enemies on the beach.

Fear paralyzed the justice system. It allowed extremists to persecute journalists without any reaction from their organizations. It immobilized authorities who should have been fulfilling their obligations and prerogatives.

Fear overcame the institutions, with the well-known exceptions. Bolsonaro warned that, in a second term, everything would be much worse.

Criminals acted with ease on several fronts, from digital militias to vaccine vampires and gold bar preachers.

And they all went unpunished, with only the third-tier members of Bolsonaro's supporters, as well as fools and patriots, being held accountable.

The institutions' failure has allowed all sorts of big-time criminals to roam free until now, with Bolsonaro at the forefront.

The climax of the affront was the defeated man's escape to Orlando. And on a Brazilian Air Force plane.

Bolsonaro fled as he pleased because he will not fear now what did not frighten him during four years of mismanagement and crimes.

The average Brazilian was afraid of this unlimited power because the authorities who should have defended it were either withdrawn or, in the most serious cases, cowardly.

The military, the militias, Bolsonaro's accomplices in the private sector, the millionaire financiers of the coup, the fools, the armed patriots, the gold miners—they all spread fear.

The mainstream press, already weak, began to operate in fear. Public servants suffered persecution. Fascism hunted down artists and killed Black people, the poor, Indigenous people, gay people, and transgender people.

The university was silenced by the family's henchmen and did not react. The students disappeared.

Brazil, gripped by fear, nearly re-elected Bolsonaro. But the election and inauguration festivities are beginning to bring an end to the period of spreading terror.

The people went to Brasília to say that not even the fearful sectors of the left itself could sabotage their right to be with Lula.

Lula and the people offered a lesson in fearlessness, especially to those who now have the obligation to address the reparations.

Now is not the time for witch hunts, as certain emissaries of the gold miners of Faria Lima claim. Witches, no.

It's time for the justice system to stop fearing Bolsonaro and the criminals who sided with the defeated leader.

Don't be afraid. Don't go after the witches. Go after the criminals, but not just the fools.

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