Bernie's socialism versus Bolsonaro's fascism

In his "Democracy in America" ​​(II p. 813), Tocqueville, considering that democracy – because it carries the germ of a new despotism – would transform itself into "its opposite," wrote that "our contemporaries imagine a single, tutelary, omnipotent power, but elected by the citizens (and) console themselves by the fact that they are tutored, thinking that they themselves selected their tutors (...). In a system of this kind, citizens leave, for a moment, their dependence to designate their master and then return to it." A lucid lesson on the democratic question in the postmodernity of post-truth comes from the 19th century, which makes us think about Brazil in these days of cruelty, moral misery, and authoritarianism that combines ultraliberalism with the fascist spasms that have brought us to tragedy.

"I've lost confidence in Jair, I'm ashamed to have believed in him, he's a crazy person, a danger to Brazil." This phrase – attributed by journalist Lauro Jardim to former minister Gustavo Bebianno – reveals the full density of Tocqueville's text. The modern democratic project – even in the most central countries of global capitalism – can no longer absorb class conflicts and the fragmented interests of the social body, in order to harmonize them peacefully with institutions: they "close in on themselves," says Castells, "isolating themselves from their constituents until they become an apparatus that watches over their own survival above all else." In Brazil, it would be more accurate to say, they are closed in on themselves, based on the extreme capacity acquired by the traditional media to direct information and to organize coup-plotting political fronts and right-wing reformist coalitions, which even take the risk of having visibly disturbed people at their head, in emotional and political terms.

This environment of "closure" is, therefore, the opportune setting for totalitarian thought to cast its anchors and begin courting the social territories in which it can prosper. In the era of the complete dominance of financial capital over global accumulation, democracy would need to reinvent itself to face the new times of its most serious crisis since the Second World War. It is a moment in which democratic-republican institutions are not only losing their capacity to harmonize, but also the corrective measures of electoral processes have proven sterile in renegotiating the political and moral life of nations. Boaventura Souza Santos observes with his peculiar intelligence that we are entering a period in which democracy can be assassinated by democratic methods, within the very process of democratic decay: elections manipulated by the "fake news" of Steve Bannon's aggressive populism are pushing us towards the abyss.

A prominent, now deceased, professor from the PSDB party, in a book published in 2006 ("The Myth of Progress," 2006, Gilberto Dupas), states at one point in that work, which was perhaps the final gasp of the "progressive" thought of PSDB intellectuals, challenging Marxists and non-Marxists alike in defense of preserving democracy: "How to construct a meta-narrative that embraces the coldness and cruelty of capitalism and yet possesses the dramatic force and compulsion of Marxist narrative? It does not seem easy to propose to new generations the image of the Bushian cowboy or the smiling salesman Tony Blair, to replace figures like Lenin or Guevara in their imagination. (...) How to replace Marxist theory with another that ties together the complexities of the global era and reintroduces utopias and proposed solutions."

Two elements stand out in the professor's text. On the one hand, the observation that – for the new narrative to be honest – it must be assumed that capitalism is "cold and cruel"; on the other, that the new rebellious generations may still be moved by "utopias." Professor Dupas then goes on to consider the necessary deferral between "bad questions" and "bad answers," however, what remains central to his inquiry (for politics) is the following: does a social formation that leads to cruelty and coldness, and that scraps its social-democratic humanist trait whenever it demands the recycling of the profit rate – against the gains that lent it minimal dignity – have a chance of seducing new generations? I think, along with Bernie Sanders, that it does not, and that it is necessary to restore the centrality of modern humanism, of the ideas of egalitarianism and socialism – utopian and "scientific" – that have their roots in the very history of humanity. And thus, to rethink democracy itself within a Social State governed by the rule of law.

From early Christianity to the peasant utopias that preceded the industrial revolution, from Thomas More to Giordano Bruno, from Gracchus Babeuf to Marx, the social question and the suppression of differences, enforced by the domination of slavery – colonial or otherwise – persist in the idea of ​​equality. From savage capitalism to the turbocharged capitalism of networks dominating minds and lives, the challenge of restoring the socialist-democratic and republican proposal is once again present today. It is increasingly clear – today more than ever – that the recourse of capitalism in crisis to fascism and Nazism, in their more or less attenuated forms, will always be present as a violent and immediate solution.

Bernie Sanders turned his electoral campaign into a powerful instrument for mediating the socialist idea, for a new America reconciled with the democracy of its "founding fathers," based on simple and clear proposals, understandable in their special social-democratic dimension, which would be simply revolutionary in the United States. Following in the footsteps of the anti-slavery democratic humanism of Lincoln and Eugene Debs, and the heroic tradition of the classical proletariat, Bernie Sanders proposed: state-funded health insurance for the entire population; free public university education; and doubling the federal minimum wage. Utopia? Yes, but that is precisely what needs to be restored to open a new democratic political cycle in which the ideas of democratic republicanism merge with egalitarian humanism, filtered through popular sovereignty.

Brazil today is held hostage by a tormented political group – without direction, without political capacity, without a national project – because the bankers, the large agribusiness owners, the highest groups at the top of the state plutocracy decided – along with global corporations and national businesspeople lacking a national and business project – that it was time for reforms. Regardless of who was behind them, the reforms should emerge from the ultraliberal incubator and the ovens of their proto-fascist allies and take over the State. Meanwhile, the man who spoke to all of Brazil, Lula, who preserved democracy and reconciled – whenever possible – antagonistic interests and also extended democracy to the poorest, is imprisoned and condemned by the current Minister of Justice. The former judge and his tormentor, now sitting to the right of the man whom Bebbiano – his colleague in the Ministry – calls a madman and a danger to the country. It may take time, but awareness or crisis will bring us, this time from America, the favorable winds of equality to restore our dignity and courage.