The rise of proto-fascism is tearing down the masks, says Safatle.

247 - Philosopher Wladimir Safatle points out that with the stabilization of Jair Bolsonaro's voting intentions and "the inaction of other conservative candidates, Brazil is beginning to see the mask fall." According to him, "little by little, sectors of the national business community, small merchants, traditionally privileged classes, and churches are emerging to expose their adherence to the brutality of national proto-fascism."

According to Safatle, "this phenomenon is recent," and he points out that "when CNI business leaders applaud someone like Bolsonaro, they are saying that they are no longer willing to make any kind of social pact." "Labor disputes could be resolved with bullets, farmers could run over environmental permits with tractors, and any trace of social solidarity could be called victimhood with impunity," he adds.

The philosopher also points out that proposals, such as an economic program, do not seem to matter to this segment of the electorate that "turns against anything that seems to place Brazilian society outside the axis of its traditional forms of reproduction."

According to him, "many have realized that, in the present times, the extreme right manages to position itself as the discourse of rupture, while progressive sectors present themselves as the discourse of preservation (of rights, of pacts, of guarantees). "In a society that has a tacit awareness that its institutions and its 'democracy' have failed, this mixture of reaction and rupture is extremely attractive to some," he observes.

Thus, everything indicates that "it will be pointless to try to play a miserable game between 'radicalization' and 'moderation,' between 'hate speech' and 'let's live together' discourse," he concludes.

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