Lalo Leal Filho: Bolsonaro's 'new politics' is to shut down Congress.
Speaking to TV 247, journalist and professor Laurindo Leal Filho described Bolsonaro's discourse on new politics, against dialogue and contradiction, as "frightening." A media expert, he sees similarities between the period of the dictatorship and now, when the press supported the coup against Dilma and created conditions for Bolsonaro to become president. "Three months later they break with Bolsonaro, support Mourão, and there's a risk that within a few months they'll have to start publishing cake recipes and poems again," he predicts, referring to censorship.
247 - Journalist and professor Laurindo Leal Filho, a specialist in media democratization at USP (University of São Paulo), said that President Jair Bolsonaro calls a policy that does not foresee dialogue with the National Congress "new politics." He also outlined a profile of a small part of the government. According to Lalo, as he is known, Bolsonaro intends to shut down the National Congress.
"To say that the need to dialogue with the National Congress is old politics leads us to understand what the new politics is? What is the alternative to not dialoguing with the National Congress? It's frightening, the new politics is to shut down the National Congress."
The professor analyzed the profiles of the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Sérgio Moro, the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, and President Jair Bolsonaro.
"What is Moro's psychological profile? A poorly educated, uncultured young man, he even has difficulty reading, in short, a person with this profile gained authority and power, and the media, largely responsible for this, turned him into a national hero, and suddenly he has to confront Congress, and he doesn't accept it. Bolsonaro, although he spent 30 years in Congress, his origins are military and his mindset is military; he doesn't accept the opposite, he doesn't accept the alternative, the dialogue. Guedes comes from the financial market, where he has always exercised power over those he commanded and over finances," he described.
Lalo stated that these profiles are too complicated to promote democratic political coexistence in the country, which is frightening, according to him.
The journalist also analyzed the president's use of social media. According to him, Bolsonaro found in Twitter a way to communicate without revealing his flaws and lack of culture. "A personality as weak as Bolsonaro's, with very little cultural depth and difficulty even in formulating more complex sentences, found a perfect match with social media, with Twitter, which is limited to short phrases and clichés. People with significant deficiencies, even cognitive ones, adapt perfectly to this type of media, which is content with short phrases; that's how the election campaign was."
Regarding the "divorce" between the mainstream press and the president, Lalo sees support and strengthening of the Vice President of the Republic, Hamilton Mourão, on the part of the media. "The attacks on democracy and all these acts incompatible with the most civilized society of this government are so great that this media has begun to point out these facts, already moving towards an alternative that, according to them, is capable of replacing their candidate, the vice president. It is clear that the media is moving towards a possible replacement of the president by the vice president."
He further compared the current political moment and the intentions of the mainstream press to the scenario of the military dictatorship. "With due proportions, the scenario is similar; they supported the coup against Dilma, they supported Temer's policies, they created the conditions for Bolsonaro to become president of the Republic. Three months later they break with Bolsonaro, support Mourão, and there is a risk that within a few months they will have to start publishing cake recipes and poems again, like Estadão and Jornal da Tarde did after the censorship imposed on them during the military regime. It's sad to say this, but it's the reality; we run that risk."