Fernando Brito: Bolsonaro is and always has been a fraud.

By Fernando Brito, from brick - In the midst of a pandemic – which it is, even if they don't call it that – on a day of chaos in the financial market and threats of total paralysis of the already weakened Brazilian economy, Jair Bolsonaro, abroad, still receiving Trump's praise and surrounded by his cronies, declares that the elections (that elected him) were fraudulent.

He claims to have proof, but he won't say what it is and he won't show it. And he doesn't need to. If the press questions him, he'll either give them the finger or have his clown clone distribute it.

A Bolsonaro It aims at two objectives: to distract attention while the national situation deteriorates, and to play the victim while orchestrating the most blatant attack on institutions, leading its virtual troops who clamor for the closure of Congress and the Judiciary.

Everyone knows – including and especially politicians, journalists, and judges – that yes, there was fraud in the last elections, but it was far from being in the vote counting. A government was overthrown, the country's majority party was destroyed, and the favorite candidate in all the polls was ousted, with the active help of the media, the judiciary, and the parties that – fools! – thought they were going to seize the power that wouldn't come to them through the ballot box.

They hadn't counted on one outsider A ferocious figure, mounted on a virtual machine that incited fanaticism and savagery, would take the reins from them in the pack of hatred they had formed. Which, now, turns against them, because the ex-captain is not about politics or negotiation, he is about coups and totalitarianism.

The non-wild right – or what little remains of it – and the defenders of the democratic order are not required to engage in self-criticism or repentance. The dilemma they find themselves in is enough: they lack the strength to resist Bolsonaro's dictatorial outbursts, even if this blackmail with masses in the streets is a paper tiger, because the president's claws and fangs lie elsewhere: the military and the... polymilitias who reject the constitutional order and are ready to rebel in the name of their "myth".

But they know they don't yet have the strength and internal unanimity for that, and therefore they need to cultivate the victimhood of the president, who doesn't save the country "only" because politicians and courts won't let him. The "left," as in '64, would be the one compromising democracy—the democracy of ladies with straightened hair, idle gentlemen, and young bodybuilders, properly dressed in CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) shirts.

To avoid giving credence to their complaints, the heads of the other branches of government feign neutrality. They say they vote for the good of Brazil and ignore, in the courts, the coup-mongering cries. They pretend to ignore everything, while the country threatens to enter an economic bonfire whose outcome is unknown.

But it is known and evident that Bolsonaro is fanning the flames, and pretending not to see them will not stop the embers from producing flames.

Bolsonaro is and always has been a fraud. He never had, does not have, and will never have the capacity to lead a country, especially one with the size and needs of Brazil.

But the ambitious blindness of establishment, Finding this character in the trash and repurposing him as a means of seizing power in a country whose immunity to adventures was weakened by a long campaign of sabotage against the democratic process, transformed him into an epidemic.

Which needs to be contained, and it won't be without risks.