Liberals can argue that the national interests are in the Market and developmentalists can say they are in the State. The Bolsonaros, in contrast, don’t have the slightest idea about what the national interests even are.
by Luis Nassif
Brazil has not yet recovered from the trauma of Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. The institutional dismantling which was started by Aécio Neves and validated by the Federal Supreme Court has produced general chaos. As a result, they trivialize the impeachment as an escape valve for the institutional crisis.
The case of Bolsonaro, however, is unlike anything the nation has ever seen, before or after democratization. The country has been delivered to a con man with direct connections to the Rio de Janeiro organized crime militias, who is leading a demented group who now have important ministerial posts and whose only goal is to destroy every formal system that has been built throughout Brazilian history.
They way that they are exercising power – plowing through the idea of checks and balances and crushing the political space of whoever thinks differently – subverts the very notion of democracy. In any event, such a huge threat to democracy needs to be fought with the definitive weapon of democracy itself: impeachment.
There is an Environmental Minister accused of environmental fraud who is dismantling the environmental protection system, hiding government environmental maps and isolating the nation from the civilized global community, which will have inevitable effects on agribusiness exports. He is also firing environmental inspectors who, long before last year’s elections, fined Bolsonaro for illegal fishing. This is absolutism in the hands of people who have no level of professional qualification for their positions, who are working together with the militias.
The Education Minister is a villain who is cutting funding for universities due to his belief in a so-called cultural war. Instead of creating educational programs, he is fomenting conflict between teachers and students.
The Economic Minister, who does not have the vaguest notion of the real world and is motivated entirely by ideology, is dismantling the National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES) with all of its history, is compromising the the National Geography and Statistics Institute (IBGE), and threatening the social protection networks which, up to now, have prevented an explosion of violence and misery. He is destroying the instruments for financing infrastructure maintenance and improvements without building anything in their place.
In the presidency we have a deranged family with direct connections to the militias who are now stimulating war in the countryside, criminalizing social movements and interfering in internal rebellions in neighboring countries, compromising 150 years of diplomatic tradition and exposing not only our neighbors, but Brazil, to the consequences of a war.
Liberals can argue that the national interests are in the Market and developmentalists can say they are in the State. The Bolsonaros, in contrast, don’t have the minimum idea about what the national interests even are. And, together with irresponsible governors like Wilson Witzel in Rio and João Doria Jr. in São Paulo, they are increasing police violence as a response to the social crisis.
The scenario we are facing is obvious.
In the economic field, Minister Paulo Guedes’ blind ideology will prevent recuperation of the economy or the job market. Every month the army of people unemployed and frustrated with the country will increase.
We have a president who has gone insane, who is trying to eliminate the political space of everyone who does not agree with his insanity, who is inciting violence across the entire nation.
Since 2+2=4, continuing with this insanity will quickly lead to social chaos, an increase in extreme poverty and in hopelessness and will lead to social explosions and organized crime groups expanding their control over Brazil.
It is impossible to believe that the other powers – the Supreme Court, the Military, the Presidents of the House of Representatives and the Senate and the political parties – will all sit back and passively watch the nation be destroyed. We need to stop Bolsonaro! This is no longer a question of left against right, between Lulismo and Anti-Lulismo, but of a tacit alliance between minimally responsible sectors of society to avoid the tragedy that will be caused by this insanity.
Every additional day of the Bolsonaro government will represent years of destruction of our future, until we reach a chaos that will cause this savagery to become irreversible.
It’s time to stop Bolsonaro!
This article originally ran in Portuguese on GGN, was translated by Brian Mier, and can be seen in its original form here.
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