By Ricardo Antunes*

The brutality of the pandemic, the “little flu” of the myth (or mico?), took the country economically and socially apart.

The hero Crapulinski, our example of an archetype representing the “rabble of bourgeois society”, seems to have begun to disintegrate through meltdown. It is true that this scenario has been taking shape for some time. Devastation in the economy, explosion of unemployment, ultra-precarious work, environmental destruction, proliferation of fires and mineral extraction, massacres in indigenous communities, xenophobia, homophobia, racism, all this and much more has always been present in this mockery variant of colonial Trumpism. It would be very difficult for its melting, at some point, not to start accelerating.   

The cult of ignorance, contempt for science, the privatization of res publica, with the consequent destruction of health, education and social security, all of this strongly supported by the ideas and insane pragmatics of broad sectors of the business community, who just wanted to see the workforce working hard to give them more production and guarantee them “good health”. life”, which our Crapulinski always found a way to defend so emphatically. Not without adding that the beneficiaries would be the “poorest”.  

And then came the unexpected. The brutality of the pandemic, the “little flu” of the myth (or mico?), took the country economically and socially apart. If the economic crisis was not enough, tearing the Brazilian social fabric even further, amplifying the corrosion and devastation of work, the lethal pandemic of the coronavirus found its ideal scenario here: in the presidency, an indigent and ignoble, faithful practitioner of the cult of ignorance, of “ holy name in vain”, always in the line of depravity, something that has no parallel in almost any part of the world.

The first crisis came with the Minister of Health, Luiz H. Mandetta. From the outset, it must be said that this is a neoliberal doctor who, from the beginning, imagined doing a business and privatist management in health. With the outbreak of the coronavirus, however, he took a bath in reality, having been supported and framed by the dignity of what was achieved at great cost and work to preserve in the SUS

The recent overthrow of Mandetta, which could be the fashion for the outburst of Bolsonaro!, seems to have inflated Crapulinski's ego. Imagining himself strengthened, after the act of the “boçais-do-bolsonaro” on April 19, it was time to start planning the dismissals of his ministers considered the strongest, Justice in the first place, which made him an inconvenience. electoral shadow next to the electorate of the extreme right and the right.

To cover up the clandestine practices of his partners in the militias and phalanxes, who advocate military dictatorship, torture, brutality, vilification and the abject, and also to preserve his family pack, the lumpen-type president played the strongest risk card to date. Blocked none other than Sergio Moro, the judge who had an infallible nose only towards the PT and its allied parties during their governments. Something that had already been brewing since the end of last year and that, after Mandetta's resignation, seemed to find its opportune moment.

Looks like the shot backfired. Moro released firecrackers that fueled more than one impeachment, in addition to helping to further break down Bolsonaro's support base on the far right. Not to recall the many previous outrages, this episode that resulted in Moro's resignation attests: first, that the motivation was adulterated (there was no formal “at the request” of the current Director General of the Federal Police); second, Moro's digital signature was added without his agreement; third, and which has the power of a very explosive bomb, as can be deduced from the words of the former Minister: “The president told me more than once that he wanted to have a person of his personal trust, that he could call, that he could gather information, intelligence reports. Be a director, be a superintendent. And it is not the role of the federal police to provide this type of information.” (look here).

Thus, the resignation of Moro seems to send the Bolsonaro government on a path closer and closer to the abyss. It will be difficult for the Chamber (with its peaceful leader Rodrigo Maia) to remain in the way of this growing outcry in society (with the exception of what remains of the fascist phalanxes) and which is gaining new impetus with the countless political and institutional developments that have already begun after the explosive denunciation of the former Lava Jato judge. Imagining that the intervention at the top of the Federal Police was because of the attack suffered by the former captain who was still a candidate, or even because of the persecution of his son “04”, according to Bolsonaro’s own words in his response to Moro, is more like a little girl story....

What, then, will be the position of the military ministers, who imagined being able to control the untimely? The first reaction of these ministers in uniform was to side with Bolsonaro, in his defense of Moro's attacks. Will they, then, continue to participate in this government of caves and darkness?

And how will the “military guardianship” that until now has supported Bolsonaro’s autocracy behave?

And finally, the oppositions? What else are they going to wait for to trigger Bolsonaro's already belated impeachment, which is taking the country to a monumental mass grave?

*Ricardo Antunes is full professor of Sociology at IFCH/UNICAMP. Author, among other books, of Policy of the Cave. La Controrivoluzione di Bolsonaro (Castelvecchi, Italy, 2019).