Tropical Fascism

By Pedro Maciel

We are witnessing the rise of fascism and Nazism in Brazil. This social phenomenon is not recent; it has been occurring gradually, but it became more noticeable after the marches of June 2013.  

 They tropical fascism He found in the histrionic Jair Bolsonaro, in Sérgio Moro and Dallagnol, always with the help of the major media outlets, weighty representatives.

 Through their rhetoric and actions, the country has normalized barbarity.

 Nowadays, verbal insults, physical assaults, and the destruction of reputations victimize all those who oppose Bolsonaro's ideology, which causes no indignation among Bolsonaro's own supporters.   

 Chico Buarque, one of the country's cultural treasures, was insulted, threatened, and called a "fag"Leaving a restaurant in Rio de Janeiro; councilwoman Marielle Franco was murdered by a militia member, "coincidentally" Bolsonaro's neighbor; my son, a journalist employed by the largest TV network in Brazil, was violently attacked simply for doing his job."

 But that's not all.  

 Bolsonarism seeks to destroy all institutional frameworks: the Supreme Court, Congress, and state structures are attacked and discredited daily by a horde of delusional, naive individuals seduced by a Nazi-fascist-oriented discourse. Why? Because Bolsonarism is a species of the fascist genus, just like German Nazism and Plinio Salgado's Integralism.  

 If in interwar Europe the world witnessed the rise of Fascism and Nazism- In a period marked by economic crises and public distrust of institutions, Bolsonaro's tropical fascism found fertile ground in Brazil, emerging from the mire in which it had been immersed, all starting with the June 2013 marches, the Lava Jato operation, and Dilma's impeachment, all fueled by a great deal of propaganda.  

 From the interwar crises – social, political and economic – present in a Europe that gradually saw the number of social conflicts grow, emerged left-wing movements, where trade unions played an important role, movements and parties that were persecuted and destroyed by Nazism.

 The euphoria and optimism so prevalent in 19th-century Europe gave way in the interwar period to: (a) pessimism and disbelief and (b) the emergence of an aggressive nationalism preached by Mussolini in Italy and by Hitler in Germany.   

 Here, after the marches of June 2013 and the relentless media propaganda against the Dilma Rousseff government, Nazi-fascist inspired ideas resurfaced as a solution to a crisis that was real, but artificially amplified.

 The same aggressive and treacherous nationalism of interwar Europe – which emerged as a solution there – ended up gaining strength here, fueled by Bolsonaro's belligerent rhetoric.

 Bolsonaro supports tax evasion, institutional breakdowns, dictatorships, and torture; he is sexist, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and rude, and has no plan for Brazil. He is such an abject being that he shamelessly uses the integralist slogan "God – Fatherland – Family." A fascist.

 In Bolsonaro's Brazil, violence, dictatorship, torture, military intervention, institutional breakdown, the institutionalization of corruption through the secret budget; the demonization of culture, science, and education, disrespect, and mockery have been normalized and are now seen as the behavior of "good people."

 In Bolsonaro's Brazil, the separation between public and private has ceased to exist; everything belongs to the universe of the plenipotentiary fascism of the tropics, whose leader is Jair Messias Bolsonaro, someone who until recently used housing allowance to "eat people," in his own words.   

 Germany, defeated in World War I, saw in Hitler's Nazi ideas the solution for its recovery. Italy, even victorious in World War I, saw in Benito Mussolini the leader who, through fascism, would save Italy from crisis. And in Brazil, contaminated by propaganda against the PT (Workers' Party) and against the left, Bolsonaro and his rotten ideas emerge as a solution for reasons unknown.  

 Bolsonaro here, like Hitler and Mussolini, managed to form far-right groups, a horde of people incapable of arguing, only of attacking, offending, and destroying others; they are people disguised as patriots. Among them are well-meaning people, but they are ignorant; there are militiamen and scoundrels of all kinds, who live to impose nationalist, racist, and backward ideas.

 Bolsonaro, like Hitler, created a “internal enemy"The PT – or the 'petralhada' as he calls them, the communists, communism, globalism, and a series of other nonsense that are sadly repeated by people we like or used to like..."  

 I'm not exaggerating; we only need to remember that the German and Italian leaders ended their opponents' rallies with extreme violence, and that any kind of socialist demonstration was a victim of paramilitary organizations that assassinated – with the approval of the State – people linked to the "red menace," exactly as Bolsonaro does.  

 It can be seen that the construction of fear surrounding communism and socialism, as well as leftist ideas, has been present in various historical processes around the world; that the lack of information of many and the bad faith of some lead people to believe, even today, that the Nazi Party, by bearing the name of National Socialist German Workers' PartyIt was linked to socialist ideas, when in reality socialism and communism were great enemies of these totalitarian regimes, and the use of the terms "socialist" and "workers" was a strategy to win over the workers, distancing them from what they considered dangerous: the leftist ideas that were flourishing in the world.  

 A victory for Bolsonaro would mean the victory of fascism, the destruction of all institutions, lies, corruption, militias, and the end of the democratic rule of law.