By EDUARDO BORGES*
The Brazilian left must direct its energies to stop the harmful state reforms underway
Recently listening to a radio program, the anchor made a comment weaving harsh criticism of the way in which the government of Jair Bolsonaro was conducting the reforms that “Brazil needs”. At a certain point, a listener (explicitly a member of the Bolsonarist sect) asked over the phone if the anchor was rooting against the government. The presenter immediately lowered his voice (perhaps afraid of displeasing his audience) and replied that quite the contrary, that his criticism meant a way to help the government and that he, as a Brazilian, was very rooting for the government to succeed. I had the feeling, at that moment, that the opinion of the broadcaster, when characterizing Bolsonarist reforms as a necessary action for Brazil to “work out”, represented the point of view of a considerable portion of the Brazilian population.
I kept imagining what would become of Brazil and the Brazilian State if the government of Jair and Guedes succeeded, the result was frightening. At the same time, I asked myself what the Brazilian left was actually doing to prevent the government of Jair and Guedes from concluding its final solution.
Since the Temer government, and more profoundly in the Bolsonaro government, I have observed certain strategic mistakes by the so-called progressive sectors and even by assumed leftists, with the issue of “reforms” that I consider to be the real problems that are pointed out on the Brazilian political horizon. . The feeling is that progressives and leftists continue to fall into the trap of both the ultraliberal right and the extreme conservative right materialized in the Bolsonaro government.
It has been like this since the so-called “PT monthly allowance” in which a series of progressive “vestals” were scandalized by the trial balloon launched by the impeccable Roberto Jeferson and were enchanted by the “firmness” of Joaquim Barbosa. They achieved a reasonable amount of harmony (some were slow to admit that it was a coup) around the “impeachment” of Dilma Rousseff, and soon afterwards, a good part of it fell into the siren song of the selective and occasional moralism decanted by the sheriff Sérgio Moro and his faithful squire Deltan Dalagnoll. I will defend until the end the thesis that the hacker Walter Delgatti is certainly the great hero of the Brazilian left in the first half of the XNUMXst century. As a result of his action, the left gained new electoral momentum and a renewed discourse of hope in the political game.
It is precisely the State built by the Constituent Assembly of 1988 (and which needs to improve a lot to become truly a democratic State) that Bolsonaro is taking big steps towards complete destruction and, to our sadness, with the indirect collaboration of the Brazilian left. At least with your approval. Apparently the left has learned little from the illusions presented in the paragraph above. The ruling elite, with all its media conglomerate and supported by the so-called social networks controlled by the “village idiots” about whom Humberto Eco spoke, continues to foment diversionist narratives (the third way is one of them) with the guise of cultured debate.
On the other hand, the progressives and leftists themselves have made their social media channels available to debate without embarrassment with former petty bourgeois coup plotters and repentant Bolsominions, in addition to simplifying the abject behaviors of the buffoon who governs us with sarcasm. More than that, a portion of the leftists do not mind serving as a ladder for the Fleets, Hasselmanns and Kataguiris and boarding the leaky boat of the “broad front” and the “super impeachment request” against Bolsonaro. The Covid 19 CPI itself and its Mirandas and Yamaguchis, and its Nietzschean reflections on viruses and protozoa, even though it serves a noble cause, the preventable deaths of thousands of Brazilians, cannot be embraced by the left as the solution to Brazil's problems . Deep down, despite its importance in defending the morality of dealing with the public thing, the CPI is just a great stage for the political elite to set its pointers for 2022. Definitely, even if it doesn't end up completely in pizza, the CPI is not dedicated to provoking the social revolution that deep Brazil needs. Perhaps, at the end of the CPI, people will no longer die of Covid 19, but we will continue to die of hunger and poverty.
The anti-corruption discourse (which has always been the main electoral crutch of the right) has become the Achilles heel of progressives and the most hardened leftists. The left has lived the dilemma of not knowing what team right to replace the discourse of combating corruption (dear to the liberal right) by the discourse (which it always had) of combating poverty. Since Lula's election in 2002, the left has lost its monopoly on moralizing discourse and, by settling for social ascension through consumption, has also lost the capital of presenting itself as the best alternative, in electoral terms, of symbolic representation. deeper social transformations. He withdrew and capitulated before the cosmetics of politics represented by party cartorialism, by the benefits of private campaign financing and by the stability that came from a peaceful class alliance with the powerful of FIESP and the mainstream media (let's not forget that José Dirceu called the owner of Rede Globo de Roberto).
Themes with the potential to provoke indignation in the leftists were losing radicality and the egocentric speech caused by the likes, bells and monetization provoked the proliferation of a bunch of “neo-leftists” with their channels on You Tube to vociferate a typical shallow and petty bourgeois speech of someone who has no tradition of political struggle on the side of the working class and who, when “discovering” himself as a leftist at the last minute, confuses political analysis with a coach's motivating speech.
Faced with this whole picture of profound practical and theoretical fragility of the Brazilian left (mainly its neo-progressive side disguised as a digital influencer with millions of followers), the ruling elite, together with the political elite, led by Corporal Bolsonaro and Sergeant Paulo Guedes et caterva the cattle of the Reforms are passing by and completely destroying what is still left of a minimal structure to support the rights of the working class. The left naively continues to play the role of piranha in the passing of the herd of the Reforms.
The CPI, semi-presidentialism, Bolsonaro's fecal nonsense, Carluxo's delusions, the terribly evangelical minister, olavism, Jovem Pan, Flávio's cracks, the drawer Aras, the blue and pink of Damares, Regina Duarte, the repentant minions of the National Congress, the first lady's check, Pazuello's crooked mask, the third way, Salles' cattle, the MBL's antibolsonarism, in short, a series of themes that we like or not make up the universe of the Bolsonarista Era and not must be completely devoid of critical analysis, they cannot, however, represent the center of the country's political debate.
Let's not be naive, one day all this will turn into something picturesque, perhaps a remote memory of a period sui generis and unprecedented in our history. On the other hand, my biggest fear (which led to the writing of this article) is that in the not too distant future we will look back and have the perception that while we were giving too much importance to this type of subject, the Brazilian State was being destroyed through nefarious administrative, social security and labor reforms bequeathing the country's future a devastated land for the working class, and a perfectly cultivated land for the delight of the Faria Limers and for the friends of Polo from the Chicago boy Paulo Guedes.
First they destroyed the CLT, imposed outsourcing and collective bargaining by company and we went to discuss the adventures of “boy Ney”. Then they ended up with the Ministry of Labor (at the moment I write I receive information that Bolsonaro is going to recreate the MT and hand it over to Onix Lorenzoni, a greater mockery, impossible), they weakened the unions and labor justice, but we prefer to debate the antics of Big Brother contestants. Then they destroyed our future with the social security reform and we are still worried about knowing what Olavo's latest bullshit is. Currently they are imbued with crushing the career of civil servants by attacking their stability and opening the door to job hangers, but we do not care, we are not civil servants, in fact, we even think that they are nothing more than a bunch of privileged people. Every day they preach and act in favor of the infamous minimal State, and we respond by getting emotional in front of the TV with corny reports that portray the pastel's aunt as a victorious individual entrepreneur. At the beginning of each morning, it is enough to publish a beautiful revolutionary sentence on Instagram and retweet a “bombastic” report by the great press against the mismanagement of the chloroquine captain, which is enough to give us the feeling of accomplishment. Of having collaborated with our share of militancy of the day.
In short, for the Brazilian left there is only one way, either it starts directing all its energies to stop the disastrous reforms of the State or it prepares itself to have to assume co-responsibility for its complete destruction. Rolling back privatizations and reforms, rebuilding them from the interests of the working class, should be the first of the points in the government project of any truly left-wing candidate in the next elections. Anything other than that is bullshit.
*Eduardo Borges Professor of History at the State University of Bahia.