Coup-mongering and democracy in Brazil: where are we headed?

Pergunta: Why have the far-right and its military wing in the Armed Forces not yet been able to consolidate their desire to stage a new coup d'état in Brazil with US assistance?

Reflecting: The behavior of ultraconservative and jingoistic figures like Eduardo Bolsonaro and Paulo Guilherme Figueiredo in the United States, as well as the arbitrary tariff increases imposed by Donald Trump on Brazil, demonstrate how much the Brazilian state has been resisting and maturing in relation to its sovereignty, in comparison to the clandestine dealings carried out by coup-plotting military officers with the US and Chile to prepare and execute the 1964 coup.

Today, the country asserts this sovereignty on the path to consolidating a democratic rule of law, fundamentally due to the actions of democratic parties – especially the PT and Lula's leadership – as well as the enormous effort of popular left-wing movements, which have been playing a historically fundamental role in preserving, defending, and strengthening institutions that include the Supreme Federal Court and the Superior Electoral Court.

However, there is still a need to significantly strengthen and promote the democratization processes of the political system, particularly the National Congress, in such a way that, in addition to the need to broaden the representativeness of popular participation, the enormous influence that elite money exerts on electoral processes to guarantee, even today, the election of its political representatives, who become a majority in a parliament where, objectively, they represent the vast minority of the country, is also relativized.

Furthermore, there is still much to be done to expand and strengthen the arduous task of reconstructing and definitively institutionalizing a National System of Social Participation, where the people, with the support of the Pedagogy of Popular Education, can organize themselves and be effectively heard in the various processes and spaces for the formulation, implementation, and social control of public policies aimed at building a society in which democracy, equal opportunities for all, environmental preservation, and the right to a dignified and quality life are its constitutive hallmarks.

In this context, the popular and democratic struggle must continue on the path to a more humane world in this 21st century, against all forms of denialism, religious fundamentalism, fascism, Nazism, Bolsonaroism, Zionism, discrimination, and multicultural prejudice.