By RICARDO GEBRIM*
The Bolsonarist movement has already gained a base, articulation, ideological identity and will survive, even without Bolsonaro, who may even become a heroic victim if he is removed.
Even though the popular forces are extremely fragile, removing Bolsonaro from the Presidency is a central, decisive task, which qualitatively weakens fascism, although it does not imply its definitive defeat.
A neo-fascist current was structured in our country. It must be clear that it will survive, even if Bolsonaro is overthrown from the government. The Bolsonarist movement has already gained a base, articulation, ideological identity and will survive, even without Bolsonaro, who may even become a heroic victim if he is removed.
The consequence of this finding is not to belittle the fight for “Bolsonaro Out”, fundamental at this moment. It serves for us to consider that neo-fascism will continue, evidently weakened in the event of an impeachment, however, acting in the political scenario and perhaps even converting its leader into a victim to be redeemed, ready to reappear directly or through his children as a savior in the face of of the deep crisis.
This is the essential question. The profound crisis looming on the horizon.
In the wake of three years of stagnation and after two years of brutal recession, the prospects are bleak. In the face of all the predictable chaos, the neo-fascist current, now structured and present on the political board, will have an impact, becoming a party, or acting partisanly with its articulation of digital militias, on social networks, acting as a strong component in the political scene. Its links with military sectors - even if we do not have a mechanism to assess this degree of support, its penetration in the state military police (the latter being more evident), as well as the relationships that were built with some neo-Pentecostal groups tend to be maintained, if not integrally, along least partially.
Therefore, this must be considered. I repeat. Not to weaken the fight for impeachment or any other way of removing Bolsonaro, but to consider what awaits us in the political struggle in the next period.
Let us remember that, in the current context, the desired removal of Bolsonaro from the Presidency of the Republic will fundamentally depend on a dispute within the bourgeois representations, with a low incidence of leftist forces. An issue that not only creates difficulties for a consistent and firm stance in this struggle, but will inevitably be marked by conciliation.
Without a mass struggle, without the entry into the scene of the working classes who are facing the most brutal loss of rights in their history, the possibilities of Bolsonaro being impeached depend much more on the revelation of new facts of extreme gravity, than on articulated action. of the opposition around the crimes of responsibility already committed.
By remaining in government, the Bolsonarist movement takes advantage of the immense chaos, the unprecedented health tragedy that triggers the overwhelming growth in the death toll, hunger and unemployment.
There is a combination that must be considered in our reviews. The Bolsonaro government is betting on chaos, the neo-fascist movement germinates in chaos, and its military support base needs this chaos to justify its interventionist intentions.
Paulo Guedes has already announced that he intends to launch a “Minimum Income” program, which would be “more comprehensive than Bolsa Família”, with the brazen intention of building an electoral base, given his solemn contempt for poverty.
Another factor must be remembered. The economic impacts tend to force the various bourgeois fractions to seek in the State the recomposition of their profit rates. None of them is interested in sharing these financial resources with the population. This context favors the support of the bourgeoisie to authoritarian and repressive governments, capable of implementing measures that deepen and sustain extreme inequality. Neo-fascism will continue to present itself as this alternative.
We are facing an important opportunity to demand the impeachment of Bolsonaro. Its loss of social base especially in the middle class, its tension with the Federal Supreme Court and sectors of parliament, its world isolation. Even with a diminished capacity for action, popular forces must be fully involved in this struggle, building, in a timely manner, joint actions with everyone who joins the “Fora Bolsonaro”.
If he remains in government, the combination of forces that sustains him will have elements to recompose the unity of the bourgeois fractions, for the time being shaken, but still not undone, and to dispute portions of the poorest sectors through social programs. Neofascism is offensive even in the face of the greatest attacks and uses every opportunity to advance around its maximum program: the change of political regime with the closing of democratic spaces.
Popular and left-wing forces need to advance in their programmatic unity, recompose their ability to represent the working classes, put themselves in place with a program that is consistent with this task, a primordial assumption to face the main challenge, the only way to resume our role in the political scenario .
*Ricardo Gebrim is a lawyer and member of the National Board of Popular Consultation.