By LUIZ WERNECK VIANNA*
Under threat, society started the feeling of insurgency against a government that denies the best of our traditions
For inattentive observers, Bolsonaro's irrational attachment to power when everyone and everything escapes his control and communicates loud and clear that the time for his end has arrived, appears to be signs of madness, of cognitive failures that escape normal perception. of the circumstances to which he is exposed, both in the electoral process that sends out irreversible signs of defeat at the polls, and in the manifest rejection by public opinion among Greeks and Trojans, including large slices of the elite, to his style of command and government.
But there is a method to this madness, and one that does not shy away from using any expedient to avoid its final defeat, ultimately even favoring confrontations that bring the country to the brink of civil war. Bolsonaro and his immediate surroundings never hid their purposes of what they understood as a political purification of the country the elimination of their opponents, at the limit, physical (the thirty thousand dead so often publicly mentioned), explicit in the glorification of military torturers in the military dictatorship and in the his obsession with defending the AI-5 regime. In this sense, he made the dissemination of the cult of weapons and the widespread ownership of weapons a State policy, and favored the creation of militias among his sympathizers and supporters.
Throughout his government, in particular after his inflection in favor of the political forces grouped in the Centrão, he sought to walk the paths of politics in the expectation that with them he would be accredited to successfully dispute the electoral succession, without losing sight, at any moment , the scammer alternative in case they get frustrated. Barring a cosmic disaster on the eve of the elections, his electoral defeat is a foregone conclusion, and the drums are already being heard announcing the presence of conspirators against democracy, in which strong trenches, national and international, are starting to rise up against their attempts.
Democrats, at this extremely serious time, cannot delude themselves by anticipating the success of their efforts, because, in fact, what is at stake is carrying out the unfinished work of democratizing the country, removing what still survives of the authoritarian debris . The desperation of those who feel that they are on the verge of losing power and its prebends can lead them to resort to “all or nothing” or to think that “after me, the deluge”, plunging the country into turmoil and chaos.
The recent outrage to the nation's dignity practiced by Bolsonaro at the infamous meeting with ambassadors from friendly countries once again exposed the reckless nature of his actions as a political leader who subordinates everything to what he understands as his interests in preserving power. The lethal risks that our democracy incurs due to the action of conspirators willing to use extreme resources against it cannot be other than that of uniting all in this cause of national salvation.
Under threat, society started the feeling of insurgency against a government that denies what is best in our traditions and in our efforts to root civilizing ideals here. The manifesto that now has more than 500 thousand signatures in defense of democracy and our institutions, to which jurists, intellectuals, artists and entities representing industry, finance and commerce and six trade union centrals adhere, still open to new adhesions, point in that direction.
Its text, actors, and the place where it will be publicly announced on August 11 at the University of São Paulo, symbolically carry the links between the current libertarian movement and that of the 1980s, signifying continuity in the democratic struggles between these two periods in that this latest one aims to complete what was still lacking in the first one.
*Luiz Werneck Vianna is a professor at the Department of Social Sciences at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). Author, among other books, of The Passive Revolution: Iberism and Americanism in Brazil (Revan).
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