Hostages of fear

Brazilian institutions are held hostage by fear.

Bolsonaro, Bolsonarism, and the horde of fools who blindly and thoughtlessly follow the myth have placed the institutions in quarantine.

Democratic sectors on the left, center, and right are inert, schizophrenic, while authoritarianism is normalized. 

In December 2014 I wrote and VERMELHO published a article which I called “Is the Right Back?”, in which I asked: “Is the right back? Does Bolsonaro (whom I have always considered a pathetic caricature of a reactionary and practically extinct right wing) actually represent many Bolsonaros? Are there many Bolsonaros in Brazil?”

The caricature has become the president of Brazil, and democratic sectors on the left, center, and right still don't understand what has actually happened in the country since June 2013 and in the 2014 elections.

To provide context, the results of the first round of elections in 2014 should have put the left on alert.

While in the state of São Paulo she wasn't exactly "wiped off the map," the impressive vote for Aécio Neves in the state, largely supported by right-wing sectors, with almost 11 million votes compared to just over 5 million votes for President Dilma; the significant decrease in the center-left representation in the Chamber of Deputies; the loss of a seat in the Senate; the reduction in seats in the Legislative Assembly; and the poor performance of left-wing candidates for governor are facts that should have been responsibly considered, which did not happen.

The same middle class that had always supported the left no longer saw her as its representative. Why? What to do? These were fundamental questions that weren't asked; after all, Dilma won the elections, and that's what mattered. But the chain of events showed that winning the elections wasn't the only thing that mattered...

The fact is that the Brazilian right wing, whose opinions have become easily expressed in the media and on social networks, was willing to break with institutional order, and it did.

Perhaps the hatred towards the poor, Northeasterners, and Black people, and the condescension towards confessed rapists, is a legacy of the "spirit of the Big House"; perhaps the right wing cannot tolerate the social ascension of the lower classes, even when this reinforces the position of the idle class at the top through the expansion of the domestic market, as Professor Fernando Nogueira da Costa wrote.

The democratic left was, and is, lost in the midst of all this, because it has to engage in politics, form alliances, compromise, negotiate, and seek areas of non-conflict and moderate action, all without the support of a middle class that is, at the very least, conservative and no longer trusts it.

If a segment of society does not see the current government as directly representing its concrete interests, on the other hand, the left offers no alternative, debate, or reflection, and worse: it is losing 7-1 on social media.

Bolsonaro wants to govern without Congress, without the Supreme Court, the Superior Court of Justice, the Superior Electoral Court, without a free press; he intends to return to governing, even through a military dictatorship; he doesn't negotiate politically, he doesn't debate. 

For this new right wing, further improvements in living standards in Brazil should no longer come from the State, via public policies, but solely from individual achievements based on effort and merit recognized through self-validation by peers. This is the individualistic vision of the ultraliberal coup-plotting right wing and fools.

This debate must begin with progressive sectors, workers and their unions, and micro, small, and medium-sized business owners, because Brazil can and must continue advancing the changes initiated in 2003, and seek reconciliation with the middle class and with former comrades who sought refuge in the PSB, PDT, PSOL, PCdoB, PV, and with all democratic sectors of the center and right, since everyone has much to say, learn, and teach. Otherwise, we will live in the shadows, fear, and pain of the absence of freedom and the relativization of rights.