By MANUEL DOMINGOS NETO & ROBERTO AMARAL*
Out Bolsonaro is a slogan that unites a growing social indisposition
Out with Bolsonaro can only take place through impeachment, the constitutional alternative available to presidentialism. Impeachment is not a mere political-legal decision. First of all, it comprises a powerful social movement, reaching all segments of national opinion. It is a reaction of popular sovereignty betrayed by the commission of crimes of responsibility.
The apex of the movement is approval by Congress. In the legal formality of impeachment, the parliamentarian fulfills his role pressed between advantages that he can gain from the threatened ruler and the preservation of his own political legitimacy.
When, in 1992, Ibsen Pinheiro guided the impeachment of Collor de Mello, the opinion of society was formed. The constitutionality, in this case, could be debatable, but the President no longer governed, he was awaiting the consummation of the congressional rite.
The case of Dilma Rousseff illustrates the process even better. The agent was revoked without a crime of responsibility. Congress bowed to the successful coup campaign that aimed to condemn the left. Dilma's mandate would have been preserved, had she not been deprived of mass support.
Impeachment is carried out in the streets and ends with a Senate trial. Between the starting and ending points, there is a crossing that is made when walking: the movement creates its own legitimation.
Today, the impeachment campaign, or the Bolsonaro Out, is the slogan that unites a growing social unwillingness. Crimes of responsibility accumulate, but what counts is the fact that considerable portions of society repudiate the genocidal government and are not satisfied with its permanence.
A minority and decreasing group supports Bolsonaro based on unreasonable beliefs, promoted by obscurantist activism, predisposed to deny reality. Mobilized by the apostle of chaos, this set operates in favor of bloody confrontation. Some have the civil war dreamed of by the President as their horizon. Supported by armed men, the genocide does not hesitate to sabotage the bonds of national unity.
Most Brazilians live in restlessness, fear and demobilizing uncertainty. Fears the plague, suffers the pain of irreparable losses; suffocates the cry of revolt in tears.
The poorest have no way to dribble hunger. Dejected and astonished, fathers and mothers of families lose hope of finding work. Small and medium-sized entrepreneurs experience the fear of the closure of their businesses. Civil servants helplessly watch the threats of salary cuts.
Society plunges into paralyzing hopelessness while the very few benefited from the policy of dismantling the State, social rights and environmental protection apprehensively follow the country's course. They know that popular fury has its price. They slyly observe the social propensities measuring the period of validity of the President.
Some hesitate to withdraw it based on an amoral reasoning: “let the government bleed so that it is more easily defeated!”. What is repugnant about this way of thinking is the disregard for the lives of Brazilians. It's criminal reasoning.
Others believe that the impeachment would be the realization of diabolical military planning: the President's mishaps and madness would cause chaos and then order would be restored by the ranks. For the umpteenth time the soldiers would save the fatherland. This possibility deserves consideration.
It is necessary to think of impeachment imagining both the process itself and the following day, notably because the constitutional substitute for the incumbent is not trustworthy. The current Deputy would not reproduce the rude and appealing attitudes of the incumbent, but would endorse, as well as his faithful colleagues in uniform, the general lines of the government since, strictly speaking, they constitute the government itself.
It so happens that popular mobilization for impeachment can and should condition the next day. Fora Bolsonaro would be inconsequential if it did not point out changes in content in the conduct of the government. It is not enough to send Bolsonaro home or to jail. It is up to politically defeat the forces that sponsor it, including the military who, subverting the Order, act as political actors to the detriment of their institutional functions.
Replacing Bolsonaro, Mourão will have to respect the designs of a society mobilized for the defense of life and the State itself. The barracks will bend to the mobilized social will. They will know that the time to save the homeland in the name of the bewildered people has passed.
Impeachment needs to mean the end of military guardianship and the establishment of an agreement between political forces that guarantees governance according to a basic emergency program. Otherwise, the ruinous Brazilian scenario will be aggravated.
In the impeachment process, theses about the country's direction will be established and imposed. The multiple demands will be made explicit. There will be programmatic clashes, however, no longer reserved for the small number of party leaders and owners of wealth.
The impeachment lawsuit will be the magnet that will unite the varied aspirations of our society. Today, opposing impeachment is betting on paralysis and chaos. To defend it is to fight for democratic order, for national dignity, for the defense of society and for the resumption of development.
Without impeachment, we will sink into disorder and arbitrariness.
Out, Bolsonaro!
* Manuel Domingos Neto is a retired UFC/UFF professor, former president of the Brazilian Defense Studies Association (ABED) and former vice president of CNPq.
* Roberto Amaral he is a former president of the PSB and former minister of Science and Technology.
