The balance of the Bolsonaro era: more inequality, deforestation, machismo and ‘fake news’

“It came like a nightmare, unhappy/ To the angry voice of a voice that should not be trusted/ To a voice that tells and lies and denies and denies itself,” recalls the famous actor Walter Moura, who was one of the participants in the musical insult. Bolsonaro donald trump and became his tropical stuntman. under his leadership, extreme right repeated the slogan “God, country and family” what did he get italian fascism and adapted to the expectations of evangelical pastors who found a permanent partner to rule a universe in the retired captain. inequality. Currently available in Brazil 266,000 millionairesAccording to a study by Credit Suisse bank. The richest 1% of the population owns 49.3% of the national wealth. In a country of 213 million people, whose economy grew by 4.6% in 2021 and will close this year with an increase of 2.5%, largely thanks to food exports, 33.1 million citizens are starving. 10% do not eat in a day.

From the government, Bolsonaro disqualified feminism and gender equalityproclaimed the iron hand and glorified uniformed officers involved in crimes against humanity. It was more than tolerant of the expansion of vigilante militias and the arms trade. Indigenous communities were harassed for defending the rights of their land, threatened by extractivism, illegal fishing and logging. “He adopted a strategy of symbolic manipulation of the race issue,” said sociologist Flavia Rios. Bolsonarism also had a reactionary Afro-lineage. Sérgio Camargo has come to the Palmares Foundation to put an end to the “mythology of class struggle of blacks versus whites”.

One of the strongest traces of the Bolsonaro era has to do with language. The retired captain had almost no limit to his interventions, except when Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were considered scandalous. The song raises a question that is also a symptom of this time: “Say something like that, and whoever says it will go unpunished?“No judicial or parliamentary investigations against him during these years have been successful.

deforestation and fake news

In a recent speech to the UN General Assembly, Bolsonaro said: Amazon remains intact. The numbers say otherwise. september the most fires of the decade: 36,850 recorded. In August, 661 km2 was deforested, 81% more than in the same month in 2021. Before assuming the presidency, the destruction had reached 7,500 km2. In 2021 it was 13,000 km2. The barter was encouraged by the Government itself.

“Like in a horror movie, indescribable / Truth neither matters nor is told,” he recalls. divine to the unspeakable. Bolsonarism turned fake news into a weapon of the state. this Lie and defamation they were naturalized, but achieved more unusual proportions in this election campaign.

Bolsonaro and the Bolsonarists

Bolsonaro is a turning point in the history of that country. And Bolsonarism is more than its ultimate constituency. Sociologist Gabriel Feltrán identified the matrices that make up this power bloc: “police militarism”, “anti-evangelical intellectualism”, It rejects science and formal education in favor of religion and personal experience, as seen during a pandemic that killed nearly 690,000 people. Finally, the glorification of self-standing ‘monetary business’. Rodrigo Nunes points out in his book from trance to vertigo Bolsonarism “a true convergence of different trends With the potential to establish itself as a major force in society for quite some time”. Win or lose in the elections, it seems to have come to stay. What has the far right accomplished with the retired captain, as the song says, “possible” or “unacceptable” at another time? It wouldn’t be: a project that could gather 15% of the most ideological Brazilians and drag another part of society. Nunes describes it as “between classes.” There are “strong affinities” between the elite, but less favored social sectors.