The shadow of defeat
There is no reason in the elections, people want someone to idolize, who has answers as simple to their problems as their limited vision of the world, and so they exchange the savior Lula for the messiah Bolsonaro. No one thought of giving democracy a chance, and the second round was defined by fear.
It’s up to us to make this, one more necessary evil. Yes, like the PT, it was left but not the left we need. The extreme right now has the opportunity to prove in practice, that governing for the elites is not the solution. Lula was not the saint who would rid the country of misery, and Bolsonaro, is not yet, a dictator.
I say “yet”, because he has everything to be. Not only because of his discourses of hatred of minorities, but also with nostalgia for the times of the Dictatorship (when, I can not get enough of remembering, “good people” murdered 434 political prisoners, 1.2 thousand peasants and 8.3 thousand Indians, without counting thousands of Rubber Soldiers), but by the passionate masses who worship him in the streets, from where his true power comes.
The election of Bolsonaro is the result of a herd effect, growing in popularity as not even Lula ever got (lost 3 elections before being elected president). This makes it even more dangerous, since meteoric growth necessarily occurs through the selective blindness of fanaticism.
A frighteningly similar picture to that of 1989, when the PSDB declared official support to the PT (with the right to Mario Covas climbing on the platforms alongside Lula), in an attempt to defeat the candidate Collor, the “Maharaj hunter” (who had the support of the entrepreneurs). The result was the same as in 2018 and, who knows, the end will be, too.
In his war on good (us) against evil (them), Bolsonaro can conquer undemocratic superpowers, authorizing torture and murder, attacking press freedom and chasing minorities. Powers that social networks have given him for a long time, just see what Congress and the streets will say.
If he does a good job for the businessmen who elected him, Bolsonaro can stay in power for a long time, or even in a hereditary way, by electing any of his many children involved in politics, in the so-called “Bolso-family” (as “Bolsa família”, the Lula program to fight poverty). If we are lucky, his children will fight among themselves for the throne.
The challenge of the Brazilians is not to let the country become a Venezuela or a Turkey, protecting democracy, as it did not seem necessary. Combat the new excesses that will add to the old ones, strengthen the opposition (it does not cost to follow one or two deputies in the social networks and know what they are doing) and minorities (it’s also good to follow some popular leaders), and unite the left moderates with the ones of the right, in favor of Social Democracy.
These do not have to be years lost, and I do hope they are not. With strong opposition, we can protect past achievements, generate good jobs and get out of the crisis, after all, there is always hope that all the absurdities that have elected Bolsonaro, have been only democratic promises. The fight will take place in Congress, which has undergone the biggest change in its history, and that is already a good sign.
Let the political clamor not be lost and, from now on, let us begin to value and strengthen the candidates we wish for the municipal governments in 2020, and the campaigns that can put us back on the democratic track in 2022.
That the election of Bolsonaro be the last authoritarian sigh of our banana republic, so that we can only worry about corruption again.
