By ROBERTO BUENO*

The “third way” has the identity of authoritarian, demophobic-oligarchic neoliberalism, of the group that carried out the 2016 coup d'état supported by the obsequious silence of the uniform

On this last day, 11.09.2021, the well-known economist Edmar Bacha gave a long interview to Folha de São Paulo, a communication vehicle whose editorial line is now directed by the São Paulo financial system. Illustratively entitled “Bolsonaro is a risk to democracy, and Lula is a risk to the economy”, the interview is a metaphor for the efforts to dominate the elite, whose statements proved to be perfectly in tune with the editorial line of interest of the financial system. Politically, the system filed a divorce request from the military-dictatorial extreme right to enable a supposed “third way” candidate to contest the next presidential elections in 2022.

Bacha is introduced and has asserted his authority by the journal of the financial world based on his credentials as an economist. In view of its content and the data adduced, however, the interview cannot be interpreted, properly, as that of an economist, but as typical of a militant who assumes political-party positions. Bacha avoids the recognition of elementary statistical data on the recent history of the Brazilian economy and its obvious consequences, although none of this is due to ignoring them, but due to his political militancy adhered to the deep interests of the Brazilian conservative-authoritarian forces identified with financism. Bacha remains blind to the facts and to all the elusive arguments for the purposes of this group of high economic and financial power.

The information presented, the tone adopted when working with them and the interpretations made by Bacha demonstrate extreme convergence, and convenience, for the purposes of the authoritarian neoliberalism of the national extreme right that today conveniently appears (badly) disguised as a duly varnished “liberal right”. with supposed democratic appreciation. Bacha presents himself – and, implicitly, his family – as belonging to the tradition of “social liberalism or social liberalism”, which he suggests is typical of the toucan period in power, allegedly a period of “advances” that in this Bolsonaro-military era would be placed at the risk of being lost. Pervaded by false and denying information about the great advances of the economy in the PT period, Bacha's interview brings important elements for us to carry out an efficient approximation to the real danger inherent in the attempt to make an alliance with the national political sector historically linked to pre-modern structures in relations social, political and economic.

The sense of Bacha's interview with the media of the financial world is highly convenient for neoliberal-authoritarian forces. The latter are in a frank process of detachment from political militarism in the exercise of power today. The Brazilian neoliberal-authoritarian forces appear conveniently disguised as a “third way”, proposing the interdiction of the spare forces at this moment, namely, the progressive left, which has almost 50% of the voting intentions for the 2022 presidential elections, while 25 %, approximately, are those hitherto committed to the military extreme right spread across various social strata and which today has one of its points of support in the so-called “military party” – which includes the entire coercive apparatus of the State, including the police – mobilized through the granting of various benefits in addition to occupying thousands of positions in the structure of the State. The implicit objective in Bacha's interview is to promote the rebirth of the national “third way”, to make it electorally viable, and he admits it succinctly: “I am 100% involved in the search for a better way”. It is not about concentrating efforts to create conditions to overcome Brazilian-style neo-fascism and creating a political project of popular interest oriented to national socioeconomic development, but rather an attempt to give rise to a political project with the profile of the intelligentsia in the service of the oligarchy.

This effort to maintain and consolidate the power present in Bacha's interview involves all sectors of the mainstream media, televised – the case of Rede Globo transmitting (advertising) PSDB previews is illustrative – and print (newspapers and magazines), with one of them, controlled by the financial sector, is the magazine Veja. Recently, on September 01.09.2021, 2753 (issue 2022), the magazine published an article signed by Rafael M. Moura, entitled “Neither Bolsonaro nor Lula: research shows that leadership belongs to the undecided”. The argument of the text recognizes Lula's outstanding advantage in the electoral polls for XNUMX over Bolsonaro, who appears in second place, using data from the electoral poll commissioned by the XP Investimentos / IPESP, unsuspected tendency to favor the left.

The strategy worked on in terms of Veja was to draw the supposed great path open to an “unnamed candidate”, someone who would bring together undecided people, a virtuous figure, but with the problem of not having been discovered by voters. These would be on the lookout for his emergence, while the organizers of the “third way” are testing names to, then, connect him to the Midas touch of the mainstream media, willing to incense the political figure as soon as it is found. Faced with the indisputable results of the survey, the magazine's article forces the conclusion that "the voter does not want either Lula or Bolsonaro, he longs for a name similar to the third way". This is a well-finished photo of the work of the media arm in favor of the “third way”, even when it is necessary to disregard clear data indicating that the sum of the votes of the left electorate, PT in the lead, are the majority in the current scenario of political polls for the 2022 presidential elections, with the possibility of even winning in the first round. However, for the magazine Veja, in a journalistic-political version of sebastianism, the people would be waiting for the face of the “third way”.

The midwives of the “third way” try to make it electorally viable, and try to justify their intense commitment as Bacha does, namely, “because I think that Bolsonaro is a risk to democracy in Brazil and Lula is a risk to the economy”, affirmation which leaves the cables very well tied, although not evident at first glance for everyone. Arguably, Bolsonaro embodies – together with his group of military and financial supporters – not only a risk to democracy, but also the certainty that there is an ongoing project to put an end to democracy. This is the second act of the power strategy of the 2016 coup d'état group, to which Bacha does not direct his criticism. Then, as today, no one who positions himself among the defenders of constitutional democracy would doubt that even then, in the 2018 electoral moment, as today, our political system is under direct threat. Then, as today, the “enlightened group” of right-wing intellectuals remains allied with finance capital, embracing the neo-fascist alternative.

The thinking of the authoritarian right does not give up, and Bacha shares with him the fundamentals of a social model in which the people are a problem, and they continue to seek power alternatives that the people have already given plenty of signs of not supporting. For the group whose ideas Bacha intends to vocalize, their ideals should be publicly recognizable as “social liberalism or social liberalism”, but in this concept the people occupy a secondary variable position, and hence the falsity of any approximation with the intended concept. For Bacha's neoliberal-authoritarian method and his troupe, it turns out that the serious Brazilian problem is the economic vision of Lula and the PT, but not the one applied by Bolsonaro-Guedes, that is, the problem is the people, even when the regime consents to offer bones to the people, and no longer affordable meat, as occurred during the years of the PT administration, when hunger was swept away from reality and the constitutional precept of eradicating poverty was fulfilled. For authoritarian financier neoliberalism, economic policy is summarized in contempt for the population, in the health crisis, in the distribution of bones as if they were food, and nothing more than an accumulation of suffering and death.

As the aforementioned article in the magazine admits Veja, by the month of August there were already more than ten names launched as trial balloons for the Presidency, all of them unsuccessful, and all of them committed to this project of power refractory to popular interests. Lula not only remains at the forefront of the polls, but is experiencing a clear growth in popular preference, and with the relevant aspect of not running an electoral campaign. This offers plenty of reasons for concern for the Brazilian authoritarian right now varnished as liberal, useful to distort the public perception of its political participation in the death of almost 700 individuals. The political divorce movement of right-wing extremists is very useful to keep competitive at least part of this segment highly committed to the practice of crimes against humanity that claimed tens of thousands of lives and exposed the entire Brazilian population to risk.

An example of this useful detachment in the field of the extreme right can be found in the figure of the Governor of São Paulo, João Dória. When in the exercise of the City Hall of São Paulo he revealed his real political character, already mature man, whose personality would not suffer fundamental alterations nowadays compared to the one who authorized the demolition of a building with people inside and also the shooting of water jets in homeless people even during the harsh São Paulo winter, in addition to signing a decree (he would later change his mind) authorizing the municipal guard to remove, among other items, even blankets from the homeless. Undoubtedly, this is a profile incompatible with that of a “liberal”, as the acolytes of the third way intend. The contempt for the people expressed by the conduct of João Dória at the head of the São Paulo City Hall is typical of the neoliberal authoritarian right, whether militarized or not. The fact that she approaches the uniform or keeps her distance is guided by the mere convenience of doing so, an ideology inhospitable to democracy whose nature cannot be hidden by the light layer of varnish applied to her to distort her real identity for electoral purposes.

Since this is the identity of the national right, it is not surprising why Bacha and his group do not blush when they say that Lula is a risk to the economy. In a situation of democratic normality, an economist like Bacha would not take the liberty of manipulating, when not falsifying, the exposition of data and the interpretation of economic statistics, ignoring, for example, that it was under the PT administrations that Brazil knew its best historic moment from the point of view of the convergence of economic growth and progress in workers' living conditions. Bacha and the “third way” revamped ultraconservative thinking, close to the narrow horizons of the national oligarchy of the Old Republic, uncompromised with the implementation of a national development project whose starting point was the improvement of the living conditions of the Brazilian people.

There is no denying that in Bacha's interview there is extreme clarity in his falsification when he states that “The last statements that he, Lula, has given show that he has learned nothing. He has positioned himself against fiscal austerity, against opening up the economy”. It is a fact that Lula and the PT developed an economic policy that catapulted national social and economic indicators and, in no way, were adopted measures that were refractory to free foreign trade, that is, adopting protection measures similar to those of other countries, as is the case from the USA. What Bacha and his group did not learn is that fiscal austerity cannot be transformed into austericide, paying the price of human lives, although we must consider that for the uniformed “third way” this price does not matter as long as they make their profits. . It causes deep irritation to Bacha and the “liberal-uniformed” group is that the Brazilian people prefer nationalist politics and policies, while the oligarchy prefers to submit the country to US interests, creating production structures and policies that mirror the interests of the empire.

The arc of criticism woven into Edmar Bacha's interview is very broad. Not only Lula, but also her advisors are useless, says the interviewee, “they are all retrograde, they are all in this line of recovering a great Brazil, they have learned nothing”. What must be learned by the left, according to Bacha's pen so useful for the oligarchy, is how to transform themselves – and the entire left, if possible – into an instrument of the interests of large transnational corporations, above all, the North American ones. . For the “third way” in uniform willing to join forces in defense of “democracy”, the good left is the one willing to carry out this anti-nationalist movement. The implicit purpose in the critique of Bacha's thought is in tune with Brazil's submission to the business strategies of large corporations, making the country dependent on the clientele of North American products and technologies while placing itself in the exclusive condition of supplier of commodities and, at the same time, establish the conditions for dominating the country's mineral resources. Bacha's group is made up of a predominance of people who find a passion in genuflection, intending to impose it on the Brazilian people even against their interests and preferences, who reiterate successive examples of their option for nationalism and the exercise of sovereignty and, despite the manipulations, the polls have attested to this fact over and over again.

Bacha's interview contains manipulations typical of the group situated in the field of the uniformed authoritarian right, operating data and interpretations about Brazil with the sole objective of fitting them together to anchor their power project. This model of manipulation is manifest and knows no boundaries, available to cover everything necessary to cover up what is convenient and guarantee the result that interests the finance managers. Scruples are non-existent silverware at the authoritarian-financial table of the Brazilian “third way”, and an example of this is the recent decision by XP Investimentos. The company had been conducting electoral surveys periodically, the last of which was commissioned from the Institute of Social, Political and Economic Research (IPESPE) on 17.08.2021, and in it Lula maintained the lead with a tendency to grow over his fatal neo-fascist presidential competitor. The survey commissioned by XP Investimentos was finalized, but it chose not to publish it, and to destroy it. The reason? In view of the bad political consequences for Bolsonaro after his strong coup pressures on 07.09.2021, the survey, according to XP Investimentos, would be “contaminated” by this poor popular assessment, as if surveys did not demonstrate to some extent precisely the photograph of some time under the circumstances and pressures of the time. But for XP Investimentos, the result would be distorted and presents an even greater drop in voting intentions for Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential elections, a reality that needs to be hidden. Obviously, this scenario is not compatible with the interests of the company, which to protect them embraces any version of the authoritarian extreme right, militarized or not.

The destruction of the survey showed that XP Investimentos has no material criterion other than profitability in all its operations, and in the field of surveys, it will publish only those whose results suit it. Since manipulation is the company's keynote, it is worth asking: Aware of this character, would the reader entrust their resources to an institution with this business management policy? Would the reader entrust his money to an institution that works with the truth as a mere result of deliberation on business convenience? In the political field, today, his interest is to prevent the popular electoral choice, converging with Bacha's proposal, the man who says he is "100% involved in the search for a better way", namely, any the polls point, that is, as long as it is not the left field.

The “third way” has the identity of authoritarian neoliberalism, demophobic-oligarchic, of the group that carried out the 2016 coup d'état supported by the obsequious silence of the uniform. This group is absolutely and irresolutely committed to continuing the economic agenda that quickly organizes and executes the deepest plundering of the country that has ever been known, expropriating national wealth and its companies, as well as the income of the Brazilian people, guiding its actions by measures of destruction of the Constitution. The horizon pointed out by Bacha's analysis is complacent with this scenario, and the thought of the group to which he belongs was expressly expressed: “There's no way, no. We have to focus on building a better alternative, which this country deserves”. The case is that for this group “the country” is composed only by the elite and its servants, but not by the entirety of the people. The suggested alternative is the repetition of models of wealth concentration and people's exclusion from advances in economic development. The best alternative for Brazil is the exclusion of the extreme right – in uniform or varnished as a liberal – from the control of power and even from the antechamber of power.

Bacha's interview as a radical defender of the "third way" reveals his intimate connection with the interests of the financial sector and with the modus operandi from XP Investimentos. Returning to the origins of the process of neo-fascist evolution in Brazil, Bacha makes it clear that “The financial market had a lot of hope in the liberal agenda of [Economy Minister Paulo] Guedes and was afraid of Lula”, that is, it placed hopes in the declared admirer of the Pinochet dictatorship convicted of crimes against humanity but not a man whose government lifted 40 million out of poverty and the country off the hunger map. The “good expectation” of the financial market consciously chose not to ignore all the high risk that the militarization of national life imposed, but to accept it as a possible and desirable horizon for the business world. Guedes, the man of hope in the financial market, publicly declared his appreciation for the Chilean military dictatorship and was umbilically united with Captain Bolsonaro, who also publicly declared his praise for the methods of the military dictatorship, including torture, and this is the true identity of the “third way” . Guedes' “liberal agenda” was and continues to be the great object of desire of the financial market, for having perceived the great profitability, even when dictatorship and torture were drawn on the horizon as a counterpart to such intense benefits. This, however, does not make the slightest difference to Bolsonaro supporters, as was the case with Bacha and XP Investimentos, nor does it today, with minor complaints immersed in intense support for the military necroregime.

Were it not for the operation being conducted strictly according to the logic of maximizing the interests of the financial oligarchy, it would be incredible for Bacha to – at this point in the unfolding of the serious facts and the very clear corruption of the current military necro-regime – bring to light the criticism of “corruption”. of the PT, still classified as the first opponent to fight, even before the establishment of this military necroregime. Financial authoritarian neoliberalism prefers the non-uniformed “third way” only as a first option, but will not hesitate, given the failure to build a candidate with this public image, to bet again on the military route, provided it is efficient to defeat the popular candidacy embodied in Lula and the PT.

Several movements indicate that the oligarchic group is working with the dissemination of the (false) idea that the candidate of the (false) "center" is the favorite for the elections, disregarding the fact that the PT was the political actor that actually implemented policies social-democratic policies in the country, while, at the time, the PSBD was concerned with the implementation of neoliberal policies, and not at all, as Bacha argues, with some kind of “liberal socialism”. Bacha and his colleagues falsify the political analysis by indicating that their group occupies the ideological segment that really belongs to the PT in view of the public policies that it implemented in their administrations.

The forgeries carried out are connected with the aforementioned article in the magazine Veja, perpetrating all sorts of crossed reasoning and logical and theoretical-historical pirouettes, and when referring to the scenario of the electoral polls for 2022, he states that, among voters from the left and the authoritarian right, “There is everything [...] side by side”. The boldness of the material would make the famous double twist pike jump as extremely modest, reaching the heights of analytical inglory by stating that “The center candidate does very well while remaining an empty silhouette or on a blank page”. Yes, the authoritarian right's favorite candidate who hides his uniform under well-cut civilian clothes and the allegory of the “third way” finds his ideal space on a blank sheet of paper! This is the favorite candidate.

Bacha wants to persuade that he and the group whose ideology he vocalizes are concerned with the fact that “Poverty has never been so overwhelming”, preferring to disregard statistics in terms of social policy, a typical concealment of military dictatorships as well as the dictatorship of neoliberal capital under Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Could the fact of the spread of misery and poverty really scare this group? If his concern were sincere and, as a resource economist that he is, Bacha would admit the well-known data that 40 million individuals were removed from the poverty line by the PT, as well as the country from the tenebrous hunger map that, now, the necroregime military supported by Bacha's (false) "social liberalism" reinstalled in Brazil.

The detractors of the social policies of the PT period do not lack information on the economic indicators of the period, from the number of jobs to the quality of jobs, including the considerable improvement in education and health care for children and the elderly, in short, the increase in quality of life of the population compared to previous governments. The reason why an economist like Bacha does not admit that his economic knowledge is an example of manipulation of economic science for the fulfillment of party-political interests.

In his interview Bacha also says he is concerned about complex problems that affect Brazil, such as the pandemic, now at risk of a fourth wave. But where were he and his ideological group when they supported the rise of Nazi-fascism to the Brazilian style that boosts the death toll? Where were they all when the victims of the genocide policy began to be counted in the thousands, a thousand, then two thousand dead, ten thousand, twenty, thirty, sixty, a hundred thousand dead, two hundred thousand dead, five hundred thousand dead, and now, when we count almost seven hundred thousand victims, so it is only now that the group that Bacha is “concerned” with the “risk of a fourth wave”? They deny any word about the reasons for this human devastation and those responsible. They do not recognize the Brazilian genocide, and focus on the “economic risk” represented by Lula!

With almost 40 people dead as a result of the military necro-regime project supported by the authoritarian financier group, the question arises as to who really poses a risk to Brazil, Lula or the group whose interests Bacha voices? Is the risk embodied by Lula and the group he represents, who removed Brazil from the map of hunger and poverty for around XNUMX million people? Is this the group that represents a risk having historically saved the lives of millions of Brazilians or, on the other hand, is the risk represented by Bacha's group, who kept them in a place of poverty and misery? The “risk” is embodied in the group that protects life or by those who, like Bacha, support the application of Bolsonarist economic policy when not only does it not recognize that it is a problem but also intends to re-edit it in the near future. Who really represents a risk to democracy and the Brazilian economy, who preserves lives or who is silent in the face of genocide?

Bacha's criticism of the “third way” group classifies the conduct of the current President of the Republic as “pathetic”, since he does not address the problems and even magnifies them with his public interventions. Question: was it a difficult decision for the intellectuals and scholars of the (falsely) self-styled “liberal-socialist” group to choose in the second round of the 2018 elections, or was their option taken exclusively by economic interests? There were certainly no mistakes in 2018, but the “liberal” extreme right that preserves the uniform under civilian clothes was already in operation. The dark times and the interdiction of democracy that were to come were predictable when public support was given to a mental profile that allows itself the freedom to support torture and recognized torturers, as well as dictatorship and all sorts of violations, including sexual ones, going through all over the world. types of violence, including homicides? They certainly knew the immediate scenario of their support for a planner to blow up barracks and the crimes committed by the military regime against the Brazilian population. Didn't you know this, gentlemen already in old age and in full use of your mental faculties? If the Brazilian intellectual elite did not know this, it does not deserve the elite reference, and if it did, it does not deserve recognition in terms of its moral dimension that would allow it to be recognized as an elite. In any case, his position in the future of Brazil will have to be secondary, at his own request or, in the absence of the gesture, by absolute popular imposition.

The risk for Brazil is the resurgence of the military necro-regime anchored in the false “social liberalism” that would legitimize it, which remains willing to support hidden or open militarism as long as the alternative is the rise to power by the PT. Authoritarian neoliberalism by definition is the real identity of the false national “social liberalism” whose heritage is claimed by Bacha, an economic option also willing to support militia narco-criminality when this is the alternative to prevent the project of national and sovereign development of the progressive field. The “third way” that falsely presents itself as “liberal” publicly parades the pretense of containing the violent insanity of the extreme right, but only as it functions to make its own race for the Presidency possible. Cowardice is the note of those devoid of sufficient moral sense to respect the weakness of the weakest and face their real perpetrators, the strongest, with the necessary instruments. The characteristic note of cowardly politics is crushing the weakest and shrinking from those who belch strength and violence. This is the “third liberal way”.

Bacha's fine feather expresses the conviction of the "third liberal way" that Bolsonaro is part of the problem of the Brazilian economy, but not because of the policy he adopts in the economic orbit, but rather because he promotes political destabilization, such as the one sponsored on the festive day of the homeland, the recent 07.09.2021, but omits any decisive reference to the thousands of deaths sponsored by the military necroregime. Implicit in the lines of Bacha's interview is the individualization of his problem, namely, it's Bolsonaro, just him, it's his way and way of acting, but never the content of his politics, it's his way of conducting matters, but not the decision you make in each of them. In short, for the neoliberal authoritarian right that hides its uniform under fine civilian clothes, in no case is there any criticism to be made of the political economic line adopted by Bolsonaro through Guedes, the man whose liberal agenda was (and is) the object of “hope” of the market, as reported by Bacha.

In recent weeks, especially after 07.09.2021, the Brazilian oligarchy through political operators such as Kassab, appeared to be uneasy with the regime and pointed to the possibility of disembarking, interpreted by many as possible support for the opening of the process of impeachment, temperature increase movement interpreted by few as a strategy to increase the redemption value to maintain support for the Government. Perhaps the increase in temperature was in fact nothing more than one more operation to spread difficulties to the Government and, thus, increase the margin of demand for resources to renew support.

The supposed restlessness of the Brazilian oligarchy was soon overcome through a very modest letter written with the opaque style peculiar to Temer, whose signature by Bolsonaro placed him in a position of retraction, indicating supposed revisions regarding his political insertion. This was considered enough by the oligarchy for it to file Bolsonaro's withdrawal from power, a move exemplified by the loose laughs at a wealthy dinner party at the house of speculator Naji Nahas. The almost 700 lives of Brazilians do not count, do not bother and do not concern the oligarchy, they are worthless, it has always been like this, from the shackles of Brazil as a colony to the tortures under Brazil in uniform.

In the interview proposed by Folha de São Paulo This newspaper in the financial world did not propose a question to Bacha about this multitudinous tragedy of deaths, an unprecedented event in Brazil and Latin America, but neither did Bacha show concern about this in his answers, since the “problem” is Lula and the PT administration of the economy. The lives of Brazilians, simple and poor people, mean nothing to the oligarchy that luxuriates in its halls filled with silverware and works of art, oblivious to the daily drama of thousands of people who risk their lives on the streets to survive. We thought that Marie Antoinette had reached the height of disdain for the nobility, inhumanity and cruelty by ordering the hungry French people to eat brioches in the absence of bread, but the fact is that we still did not have the perfect calibration of the destructive “potential” of the Brazilian elite and his indescribable hatred for the Brazilian people.

Every day it is clearer that the genuine risk (economic and political) to Brazil is not what Lula represents, as he guides development by prioritizing popular interests. The “third way” group, in favor of which Bacha says he works 24 hours a day, is entranced by the surveys of the unsuspected XP Investimentos: in July 2021, Lula’s advantage over Bolsonaro was 49% to 35% , while in the most recent survey transpired Lula's advantage being expanded to 51% over Bolsonaro's 32% in a possible second round dispute. The real concern, therefore, is that the Brazilian people can once again assume power. This is the problem and cause for concern for the “third liberal way”, and to avoid it they will once again defend authoritarian and, if necessary, military and even dictatorial alternatives. About this the progressive camp cannot doubt.

The democratic risk for Brazil is Bolsonaro, as Bacha's “third liberal way” sustains, but sophistry when proposing that the risk to democracy is the only one that his military necroregime embodies. Bolsonaro and the extreme right are the serious economic risk that Bacha’s “third liberal way” attributes to Lula and the PT. The manipulation of information is painful, and Bacha argues that the PT is a “retrograde” alternative, which “does not seek an effective improvement of the Brazilian economy so that it can be strong enough for people to be able to do what matters, which is improve the living conditions of the people”. This is a stupid falsification of the recent Brazilian economic history represented by the economic management of the PT administrations, whose superlative results can be summarized, but not completely expressed, due to the fact that 40 million people were removed from the poverty line and the entire country from the hunger map. . From the human point of view, this is the synthesis of government in which the economy worked for the people, and their lives were not used to move the people-crushing machine of the neoliberal-financial economy typical of authoritarian-military regimes, so much to the liking of people like Guedes and his financial market admirers.

Contrary to what the “third way” proposes, the economic risk for Brazil resides in the Bolsonaro-Guedes economic policy, for which Bacha does not reserve harsh criticism. Bacha and XP Investimentos embody the interests of the national oligarchy, they do not belong to the alleged “third liberal way” between popular and nationalist developmental progressivism and the military extreme right associated with the USA, but rather a detachment of the latter in order to clean up its image of the bloodbath provoked by the military regime that they supported since their birth under the coup d'état and electoral fraud. Bacha and XP Investimentos embody political diversionism, authoritarian neoliberalism, the extreme right (for momentary convenience) not in uniform.

The “third liberal way” reiterates the attempt to reconstruct the conditions for the continuity of Brazil's economic exploitation under a preferably demilitarized political version, although in case of need they can give up this initial preference when it proves to be dysfunctional for their purpose. Authoritarian by definition, the neoliberalism that inhabits the hard core of the false national “liberals” intends to be the new ideological mask, legitimizing the genocidal extreme right, but with embarrassment to wear boots in their parties with high plumage and sophisticated manners.

The formation of an extreme right-wing group without uniform is under way and intends to persuade the public to be “liberal” and to find themselves embarrassed by their past political choices, although not embarrassed by mass homicides. When this group is called upon to make the ultimate choice between popular interests and any form of protection of the basic interests of the oligarchy, this group does not hesitate, tears up the neoliberal ideological fantasy, revokes codes and shreds all sorts of legislation, loses its shame (whatever remains) , mortally wounds the Constitution and gladly wears the uniform, starting to threateningly and cowardly shout their rifles at the civilian population. The “third liberal way” is just the extreme right without uniform that wants to detach its image from the most recent crimes committed by the necroregime to which they belong to make their candidates electorally viable.

* Roberto Bueno is a professor of philosophy of law at the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU).