Jair Bolsonaro

The childishness of the left

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Politics , , , , , ,

Jair Bolsonaro took office as president of Brazil this last January 1. The government has barely begun, but I think we can already observe a little of what the next four years will look like. During the campaign, Bolsonaro made it clear that his government would be “liberal in the economy and conservative in customs.” Here an explanation is necessary for English speakers: in Brazil “liberal” almost always means “classic liberal,” that is, defender of the free market economy. Conservative, at least in the context of Bolsonaro’s speech, is not so different from the sense of the English language: conservatism as an appreciation of the customs and traditions of Judeo-Christian society.

The speeches of the Bolsonaro himself and his ministers already in office follow exactly this tone. Paulo Guedes, chosen to be the “super-minister” of the economy, made it clear in a speech of almost an hour that Brazil’s problem is excess of state. During the last 40 years or more Brazil has treated symptoms, not the causes of its economic backwardness. The speech of Paulo Guedes was a class of economic history of Brazil.

However, what dominated the Brazilian media in recent days was not a speech, but rather a remark by a minister. Damares Alves, the human rights minister, the one who was harshly criticized for saying she saw Jesus when she was in a guava tree, said at an informal moment that “boys wear blue and girls wear pink.” The speech fell on the media and provoked the reaction of Brazilian celebrities. Many “artists” appeared changing colors, men wearing pink and women, blue. What draws attention in this case, besides the difficulty of understanding figures of speech, is the infantilization of the left activists. Damares said that “boys wear blue and girls wear pink,” not that men wear blue and women wear pink.

The minister’s speech fits into a moment Brazil is living. The cultural wing of the left wants to teach that gender is only a social construction, with no connection to biology, and therefore children should be treated as neutral, awaiting their decision as to what gender they want to adopt. Damare’s remark, therefore, refers to the education of children in public schools, not adult men and women. Brazil is a country free enough for adult men and women to wear the colors they want. The identification of many celebrities with the minister’s speech shows that leftist activists have the mental age of kindergarten children.

Damares Alves and the left’s hypocrisy

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Culture, Current Events , , , , , , ,

The last polemic in Brazilian politics was due to a testimony of Damares Alves, chosen by Jair Bolsonaro to be his minister of human rights. In a video that is available on YouTube, during a religious service, Damares tells how in her childhood, between 6 and 8 years of age, she was systematically sexually abused by someone close to her family (some sources I found say that the abuser was her uncle). To add to the sexual abuse, the criminal also exploited her psychologically: he told Damares that if she denounced him, he would kill her father. He also said, taking advantage of the religious beliefs of Damares, that she would not go to heaven because she was “impure.”

Damares tells that she unsuccessfully tried to ask for help from people in her family and her church. She would frequently climb a guava tree in her backyard to cry. When she was 10 years old, she climbed that same tree, having rat poison with her, in order to commit suicide. She tells that this is when she saw Jesus, coming to her. Jesus climbed the tree and hugged her. She felt accepted by Jesus, and she gave up the suicidal ideas.

Damares went on to become a lawyer. For many years she has been defending women who like her are victims of sexual abuse. Because of the violence she suffered as a child, she can’t bear children. However, she adopted an Indian child who would otherwise be murdered by her parents – some tribes in the Amazon believe that some children must be murdered at birth due to a series of reasons. Damares saved one of these children.
Someone cut from the video only the part where Damares says that she saw Jesus from the guava tree. The video went viral, and “crazy” is one of the milder insults directed at Damares on social networks.

In sum: the Brazilian left makes fun of a woman who was sexually abused as a child. Damares’ religious faith helped her cope with the pain. To be honest, I am usually skeptic about stories like the one she told. But what does it care? Somehow her faith in Jesus helped her to cope with one of the most horrendous things that can happen to a person. But it seems that Bolsonaro’s political adversaries have no sensitivity not only to a person’s religious beliefs but to the violence women and children suffer. When the violence does not fit their cultural and political agenda, they don’t care.

As I wrote here, Liana Friedenbach, 16 years old, was kidnaped, raped, and killed by a gang led by the criminal Champinha. Defending Liana, Bolsonaro wanted laws to be tougher on rapists. Maria do Rosário did not agree with Bolsonaro, and even called him a rapist. Bolsonaro offended her saying that “even if I was a rapist, I would not rape you.” The left in Brazil stood with Maria do Rosário and condemned Bolsonaro. The same left today mocks a woman who was sexually abused in her childhood, but who grew to help women in similar situations. Instead, they prefer to make jokes about Jesus climbing guava trees.

Jair Bolsonaro, Maria do Rosário, and the Champinha case

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Liberty, Politics , , , , , , ,

Over a decade ago, in November 2003, Liana Friedenbach, 16 years old (a minor in Brazil law), and Felipe Silva Caffé, 19 years old, were camping in an abandoned farm close to São Paulo.

While they were camping, the couple was found by a group led by Roberto Aparecido Alves Cardoso, aka “Champinha”. Initially, Champinha and his group wanted to steal from the couple. Realizing that they had little to no money, they changed their minds and decided to kidnap Liana and Felipe.

In the first day of captivity, one member of the gang raped Liana. Felipe was killed on the next day with a shot in the back of his head. Liana heard the shot, but the group lied to her saying that her boyfriend was set free. Liana was then raped by other members of the group led by Champinha.

The group never contacted the families asking for a ransom. On the third day, Liana’s family, worried about the lack of contact, called the police, which found the place where the couple was camping, with some of their belongings. Noticing that the police was closing in, Champinha killed Liana with knife strokes.

Champinha, the leader of the group who kidnapped, raped, and murdered Liana, was underage when the crimes happened, and because of that could not be sent to prison. Instead, he was interned in a correction institution.

The crime shocked Brazil. It was answering this crime that Jair Bolsonaro, at the time a congressman, was clamoring for a change in Brazilian law, allowing criminals like Champinha to be prosecuted. Maria do Rosário, a congresswoman from PT, the party of former president and today prisoner Lula da Silva, was opposing Bolsonaro. During their debate, Maria do Rosário called Bolsonaro a raper. Bolsonaro answered “I am a raper? Look, I would not rape you because you don’t deserve it”. Later Bolsonaro explained that he intended to insult Maria do Rosário by saying “even if I was a raper, as you say, I would not rape you because you are too abominable, even for that”.

So that’s it. I hope this helps non-Portuguese speakers who can read English to understand a polemic phrase attributed to Bolsonaro. And I also hope that Brazilian law is changed someday so that justice can be made and criminals like Champinha and his gang get the death penalty for their crimes.

The real threat to democracy in Brazil

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Law , , , , , ,

Earlier this week, Ricardo Lewandowski, a judge in Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court, was in a commercial flight. The passenger sitting next to him turned to the judge and said: “I am ashamed of Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court”. Lewandowski’s reaction was to threaten the passenger with jail. He turned to him and said, “tell me, do you want to go to jail?”  The passenger was indeed stopped by the police at the destination, but released right after. The video of the exchange is easily found on Youtube.

Lewandowski came to the Supreme Court appointed by former president Lula da Silva, today serving time in jail for corruption and still indicted for several crimes. He has been criticized several times for favoring Lula and his party.

I wonder if the press, that complains so much about Jair Bolsonaro being a threat to democracy in Brazil, will have the same treatment for Lewandowski. When you cannot criticize in public a public server or a public institution without being stopped by the police, democracy is no longer in place.

Since the 19th-century Brazilian judges and magistrates believe they are above the law. It is just a sad fact in Brazilian history. The challenge for Brazil is to show people like Lewandowski that they are just humans, open to criticism, like everybody else.

Answering questions about Bolsonaro (from the comments)

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Comments, Politics , , , , , , , , ,

Answering some comments about Bolsonaro, as far as I can.

Can you deal more precisely with some well known claims about Bolsanoro: he has praised at least one military officer who was a notorious torturer under the last dictatorship.

The “notorious torturer” in question is Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra. Ustra himself wrote a book, A Verdade Sufocada, questioning this accusation. I am not defending Ustra (as Bolsonaro does), but in my ignorance, I lift any judgment.

he has praised the dictatorship.

There is no denying that. Actually, Bolsonaro refuses to admit Brazil went through a dictatorship between 1964 and 1985.

I’ve just checked your previous contributions on Brazilian politics and you seem to be in favour of the dictatorship as a agent of struggle against Marxism. I agree that marxism is a bad thing, but it’s not clear to me that means supporting rightist dictatorship.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Read again.

You say that Bolsanaro understands the need for ‘order’ in Brazilian society.

Actually, his name is Bolsonaro. Where did I write that?

Can you identify some restrictions on liberty in Brazil that Bolsanaro would remove?

No, I cannot. One thing is for sure: he is not a libertarian.

Don’t you think there is the slightest risk his attitude to ‘order’ might lead the police to act with more violence?

Well, all things are possible. But I don’t think that this is plausible.

Do you deny that the police sometimes act with excessive violence in Brazil?

No.

Do you have any expectation that Bolsanaro will do anything to resolve this or the evident failings of the judicial system?

Yes. Having Sergio Moro as Minister of Justice is a great move in the right direction.

Do you deny that Bolsanaro said he would prefer his son to be gay rather than die?

No.

Don’t you think this gives gays good reason to fear Bolsanaro?

Not at all. Bolsonaro was being very honest about his personal beliefs and how they apply to his personal life. Even then, this was a few years ago. I believe he is changing his mind on a number of issues, including this one. Anyway, he was talking about his private life, and not what he would do as president.

I have had a message from a gay American friend who says he is afraid of what will happen and may have to flee the country? Do you understand and care why he is afraid? Do you have any words I can pass onto my friend to reassure him? Preferably not angry words about Gramsci, ‘cultural Marxism’ and ‘gender theory’.

If I can’t talk about cultural Marxism, Gramsci and gender theory, I can’t help much. This is essential to explain what is going on in Brazil.

Could you actually explain what this ‘gender theory’ in schools is that it i so terrible and apparently justifies Bolsanaro’s crude language?

It would take very long, but the short answer I can give here is that it is terrible to teach people that their gender has nothing to do with biology. Apart from real medical conditions, people are born XX or XY, and gender and sex go together.

Do you deny that he said a congress woman was too ugly to rape?

No, I don’t. This woman, Maria do Rosário, called him a raper. How would you feel being called a raper? I know I wouldn’t like a bit. Besides, on that occasion, Bolsonaro was exactly defending harder punishment for rapers, following the Champinha case. Champinha and his gang raped and then murdered Liana Friedenbach and her boyfriend Felipe Caffé in one of the most barbarous crimes in recent Brazilian history.  Maria do Rosário was defending Champinha and his gang. See if you can find something about it in a language you can read. In sum, Bolsonaro answered an insult with another insult. I have no problem with that whatsoever.

Can you explain how someone can be fit to hold the highest office in Brazil who makes such a comment?

It would take very long. But the short answer is that I am really happy to have a president who, if he had his own way, would have the death penalty for criminals like Champinha and his gang.

It’s nice of course that Bolsanaro says now he is favour of free market economics, but isn’t he now back pedalling on this and promising to preserve PT ‘reforms’?

He is not a libertarian. Libertarians are sure to be disappointed.

Well, I will stop here.  Sadly, although I can’t “write at length” more than that.

I write at length, so does Jacques, so there is no reason why you should not.

Actually, there are many reasons. You just don’t know. I did what I can right now. All the best.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Has there been a surge of anti-Semitism under and because of Trump? David Bernstein, Volokh Conspiracy
  2. Why do Brazilian evangelicals support Jair Bolsonaro? Eric Farnsworth, Providence
  3. Growing up in Yugoslavia (how I lost my past) Branko Milanovic, globalinequality
  4. Christianity in China: breaking eggs against a rock Ian Johnson, ChinaFile

From the Comments: Bolsonaro is no libertarian (but is he a fascist?)

Brandon Christensen Comments, Culture, Politics , , , , , , , , , , ,

Barry Stocker outlines the sentiments of many libertarians when he put forth the following argument under Bruno’s “Brazil turns to the Right” post:

Bruno (responding to this and your previous linked post), I’m delighted to be assured that Bolsonaro is not a homophobe, misogynist, a racist or a fascist (an absurdly over used term anyway). However, you offer no evidence to counter the impression that Bolsanaro has leanings in these directions in the Anglophone media, and not just the left-wing media.

Can you deal more precisely with some well known claims about Bolsanoro: he has praised at least one military officer who was a notorious torturer under the last dictatorship, he has praised the dictatorship. I’ve just checked your previous contributions on Brazilian politics and you seem to be in favour of the dictatorship as a agent of struggle against Marxism. I agree that marxism is a bad thing, but it’s not clear to me that means supporting rightist dictatorship.

You say that Bolsanaro understands the need for ‘order’ in Brazilian society. I’m sure we can all agree that Brazil would benefit from more rule of law, but calling for ‘order’ has a rather unpleasant ring to it. The ‘party of order’ has rarely been good for liberty. Can you identify some restrictions on liberty in Brazil that Bolsanaro would remove? Don’t you think there is the slightest risk his attitude to ‘order’ might lead the police to act with more violence? Do you deny that the police sometimes act with excessive violence in Brazil? Do you have any expectation that Bolsanaro will do anything to resolve this or the evident failings of the judicial system?

Do you deny that Bolsanaro said he would prefer his son to be gay rather than die? Don’t you think this gives gays good reason to fear Bolsanaro? I have had a message from a gay American friend who says he is afraid of what will happen and may have to flee the country? Do you understand and care why he is afraid? Do you have any words I can pass onto my friend to reassure him? Preferably not angry words about Gramsci, ‘cultural Marxism’ and ‘gender theory’. Could you actually explain what this ‘gender theory’ in schools is that it i so terrible and apparently justifies Bolsanaro’s crude language? Do you deny that he said a congress woman was too ugly to rape? Can you explain how someone can be fit to hold the highest office in Brazil who makes such a comment?

It’s nice of course that Bolsanaro says now he is favour of free market economics, but isn’t he now back pedalling on this and promising to preserve PT ‘reforms’? Exactly what free market policies do you expect him to introduce and what do you think about the rowing back even before he is in office? Could you say more about which parties and personalities represent classical liberalism now in Congress? If Lula and other leftist politicians (who of course I don’t support at all) have used worse language than Bolsonaro, could you please give examples?

On more theoretical matters

‘Cultural marxism’ to my mind is not an excuse for Bolsanaro’s words and behaviour, or what I know about them. Your account of cultural Marxism anyway strikes me as fuzzy. I very much doubt that Gramsci would recognise himself amongst current ‘cultural Marxists’ and the topics that concern them. I can assure you that a lot of people labelled ‘cultural Marxists’ would not recognise themselves as Marxist or as followers of Marcuse or Gramsci.

The politics of Michel Foucault are a rather complicated and controversial matter but lumping him with some Marxist bloc is hopeless. This isn’t the place to say much about Foucault, but try reading say: *Fearless Speech*, *Society Must Be Defended*, or *Birth of Biopolitics* then see if you think that Foucault belongs with some Marxist or cultural Marxist bloc. The claim that relativism about truth is something to do with Marxism and the anti-liberal left is absurd, all kinds of people with all kinds of politics have had all kinds of views about the status of truth over history. Jürgen Habermas who is an Enlightenment universalist is an influence on the intellectual left, as is Noam Chomsky, a belief in innate knowledge in the form of the universal grammar of languages and associated logical capacity.

Conservatism has often resorted to relativism about the unique values of different countries. Do you think the ancient Sceptics and Sophists have something to do with cultural Marxism? You are referring to these phenomena in a series of familiar talking points from conservative pundits which do not make sense when applied to rather disparate people with different kinds of leftism, of course I have criticisms of them but different kinds of criticisms respecting differences between groups, in which I try to understand their arguments and recognise that sometimes they have arguments worth taking seriously, not a series of angry talking points.

I look forward to being educated by your reply. Please do give us detail and write at length. I write at length, so does Jacques, so there is no reason why you should not.

Again, Barry’s arguments are a good indication of how many in the libertarian movement, worldwide, view Bolsonaro (and others like him, such as Trump), but, while I eagerly await Bruno’s thoughts on Barry’s questions, I have my own to add:

Bolosonaro got 55% of the vote in Brazil. How long can leftists continue to keep calling him a “fascist” or on the “far-right” of the Brazilian political spectrum, especially given Brazil’s cultural and intellectual diversity? Leftists are, by and large, liars. They lie to themselves and to others, and maybe Bruno’s excitement over Bolsonaro’s popularity has more to do with the cultural rebuke of leftist politics in Brazil than to Bolsonaro himself; he’s well-aware, after all, that Brazil’s problems run deeper than socialism.

Bolsonaro’s vulgar, dangerous language might be entertaining, and Brazil’s rebuke of socialist politics is surely encouraging, but it can be easy to “take your eye off the ball,” as we say in the States. Brazil has a long way to go, especially if, like me, you think Brazilians have elected yet another father figure rather than a president tasked with running the executive branch of the federal government.

Brazil’s Turn to the Right

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Politics , , , ,

Last elections in Brazil are not yet over. Brazilians will go back to the polls before the end of this month to decide who will be the country’s next president. But few doubt that Brazil’s next president will be Jair Messias Bolsonaro.

No matter what you read in mainstream media, Bolsonaro is not homophobic. He is not racist. He is not misogynist. And certainly, he is not a fascist. If he is any of these things, he hides pretty well. His language can certainly be very crude, and he can be very direct in his speech. Maybe that is exactly why he is being elected. Brazilians are tired of politicians who don’t speak their minds. With Bolsonaro, what you see is what you get.

And what do you get? Bolsonaro is not strong on any ideology. He is a self-professed Christian (somewhere between a Roman Catholic and an Evangelical), a Patriot and a family man. Because of his patriotism, for many years he believed in protectionism and developmentalism, but it seems more and more that he left these things in the past. Bolsonaro is inclined to defend free-market policies.

Alongside Bolsonaro, a very right-wing congress has been elected. For the first time in many decades, Brazil has many representatives who are ideologically classical liberals or conservatives. This is even better than having Bolsonaro as president. Meanwhile, the leftist parties (especially the Workers Party of Lula da Silva) lost quite some terrain.

If Bolsonaro and this Congress make a mildly good govern, the left will be in serious trouble in Brazil. Brazil is still a very poor country where people, for the most part, don’t vote ideologically. They vote in those who can bring development to their lives. That’s how Lula da Silva got reelected and was able to elect a successor, even with major corruption scandals surrounding him and his party.

The wind of change in Brazil is better than anything I could expect.

Jair Bolsonaro suffers a knife attack.

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Politics , , , , , , ,

Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s presidential candidate and leader in opinion polls, suffers a knife attack. According to close sources, his condition is grave. The aggressor is a militant of the Workers Party of Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro’s supporters resisted the temptation to lynch and directed the attacker to the police. Dilma Rousseff stated that Bolsonaro was the victim of his own hate speech. It is the left blaming the victim and justifying the aggressor. This is the “peace and love” left.

A short note on Brazil’s elections

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Politics , , , , , , ,

In October Brazilians will elect the president, state governors, and senators and congressmen, both at the state and the national level. It’s a lot.

There is clearly a leaning to the right. The free market is in the public discourse. A few years ago most Brazilians felt embarrassed to be called right wing. Today especially people under 35 feel not only comfortable but even proud to be called so.

The forerunner for president is Jair Bolsonaro. The press, infected by some form of cultural Marxism, hates Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro’s interviews in Brazilian media are always dull and boring. Always the same questions. The journalists decided that Bolsonaro is misogynist, racist, fascist, guitarist, and apparently, nothing will make them change their minds. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Bolsonaro is a very simple person, with very simple language, language that can sound very crude. But I defy anyone to prove he is any of these things. Also, Bolsonaro is one of the very few candidates who admits he doesn’t know a lot about economics. That’s great news! Dilma Rousseff lied that she had a Ph.D. in economics (when she actually didn’t have even an MA), and we all know what happened. Bolsonaro is happy to delegate economics to Paulo Guedes, a Brazilian economist enthusiastic about the Chicago School of Milton Friedman. One of Bolsonaro’s sons is studying economics in Institute Von Mises Brazil.

It is very likely that Brazil will elect a record number of senators and congressmen who will also favor free market.

Even if Bolsonaro is not elected, other candidates like Marina Silva and Geraldo Alckmin favor at least an economic model similar to the one Fernando Henrique Cardoso implemented in the 1990s. Not a free market paradise, but much better than what we have today.

Unless your brain has been rotten by cultural Marxism, the moment is of optimism.

What is the proper role of government?

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , ,

Former Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff publicly lied by saying that she had a M.A. and a Ph.D. in Economics. The lie was discovered in 2009, when she still wasn’t Brazil’s president. Maybe that’s the problem with Dilma: she would even lie to say she was highly competent in economics.

Nobody in the 19th century believed that the role of government was to control the economy. This notion only became strong in the 20th century and to a great degree thanks to Keynesianism. It was Keynes who popularized the notion that the free market is inherently unstable, and that government should exercise some oversight on it.

Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian presidential candidate ahead in the opinion polls, has no problem admitting he doesn’t know enough about economics. For me, this is one of his main strengths. In the past, Bolsonaro was more statist. Today he shows signs of becoming more inclined towards free markets. He is clearly willing to delegate the economic policy of his government to people who are strongly favorable to the free market. In other words, Bolsonaro doesn’t know a lot about economics and he is not ashamed of admitting it. But he knows that too much government control ruins a country’s economy.

Dilma is arrogant. Part of her arrogance is to believe that she would be able to control the economy politically. Bolsonaro seems to be humble enough to admit that’s impossible. Keynes believed that the economy is inherently unstable. Contradictorily he advised governments to try to control it. Hayek’s answer to Keynes was that economics is not a science you can master in college. There are simply way too many variables for any human to control.

Bolsonaro’s focus is on public security. Criminality is on the rise in Brazil. People are afraid of walking on the streets, especially in big cities like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. That should be the role of government: to guarantee we can go out for work, come back, and not get killed or robbed on the way. If the government is doing that, it is already doing a lot. People freely and willingly interacting with one another can do the rest. Guarantee that evildoers will be punished, and watch the economy fly. And before I forget: contrary to cultural Marxism (and Rousseau), criminals are not victims of the society. Society is the victim of criminals.

“How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him”

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Politics , , , , , ,

It’s always nice, now and then, to remind people in the press and in academia of Pauline Kael’s famous (or infamous) quote referring to George McGovern’s loss to Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential election. Apparently, it is a misquote, but I don’t think that it matters all that much.

The fact is that too many people in the press and in academia live in a leftist cultural bubble. This bubble made many people blind to Trump’s favoritism in the last US presidential election. The same bubble is happening in Brazil now, where journalists and political analysts are disconcerted by Jair Bolsonaro’s favoritism in the October elections.

The fact is that people in different social circles have different Overton windows. Created by Joseph P. Overton, the Overton window, or the window of discourse, describes the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse. But by “public” many people consider only their close social circle. People grow up in specific neighborhoods, go to specific universities, work in specific places, and are never or rarely exposed to different thoughts. And this is not entirely accidental. Cultural Marxism (Gramsci and Frankfurt School) want to create a cultural hegemony of the left, making sure that alternative discourse is thrown out of the acceptable range of ideas.

The result is a lot of Pauline Kaels.

Explaining current Brazilian politics to known-Brazilians and why I believe this is time for optimism

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, History , , , , , , , ,

It seems that many observers believe that Brazil’s current political situation is one of instability and uncertainty. Since the mid-1990s the national political scene has been dominated by two parties: the Worker’s Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT, in Portuguese) and PSDB. Now, with the main leader of the PT imprisoned – former president Lula da Silva – the PSDB also seems to have lost its rationale. It is clear that this party never had faithful voters, only an anti-PT mass who saw in it the only viable alternative. Given these factors, it is true that a political cycle that began in the 1990s is coming to an end, but far from being a moment of uncertainty and pessimism, this may be the most fruitful moment in the country’s history, as it seems that finally classical liberalism is being vindicated in Brazil.

Brazil began its political history as a semi-parliamentary monarchy. As one observer of the time put it, the country had a “backward parliamentarism”: instead of parliament controlling the monarch, it was the emperor who controlled parliament. Moreover, the Brazilian economy was extremely based on slavery. In theory, Brazil was politically and economically a liberal country. In practice, it was politically and economically a country controlled by oligarchies.

With the proclamation of the republic in 1889, little changed. The country continued to be theoretically a liberal country, with a constitution strongly influenced by the North American one and a tendency to industrialization. In practice, however, Brazil continued to be politically and economically dominated by oligarchic interests.

The republic instituted in 1889 was overthrown in 1930 by Getúlio Vargas. Vargas was president from 1930 to 1945, and his political circle continued to dominate the country until 1964. Once again, political language was often liberal, but in practice the country was dominated by sectorial interests.

Vargas committed suicide in 1954, and his political successors failed to account for the instability the country went through after World War II. The Soviet Union had been trying to infiltrate Brazil since the 1920s, and this was intensified with the Cold War. The communist influence, coupled with the megalomaniacal administrative inability of Vargas and his successors, led the country to such an instability that the population in weight clamored for the military to seize power in 1964.

The military that governed Brazil between 1964 and 1985 were influenced mainly by positivism. In simple terms, they were convinced they could run the country like a barracks. For them, the motto “order and progress” written on the Brazilian flag was taken very literally. One great irony in this is that Auguste Comte’s positivism and Karl Marx’s communism are almost twin brothers, products of the same anti-liberal mentality of the mid-19th century. The result was that Brazilian economic policy for much of the military period was not so different from that of the Soviet Union at many points in its history: based on central planning, this policy produced spectacular immediate results (the period of the “Brazilian miracle” in the early 1970s), but also resulted in the economic catastrophe of the 1980s.

However, the worst consequence of the military governments was not in the economy but in the political culture. The military fought against communism in a superficial way, overpowering only the guerrillas and terrorist groups that engaged in armed struggle. But in the meantime, many communists turned to cultural warfare, joining schools, universities, newsrooms, and even churches. The result is that Brazilian intellectual life was taken over by communism.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, elected president in 1994, is an important Brazilian intellectual. Although not an orthodox Marxist, his lineup is clearly left-wing. The difference between FHC (as he is called) and a good part of the Brazilian left (represented mainly by the PT) is that he, like Tony Blair in England and Bill Clinton in the US, opted for a third way between economic liberalism and more explicit socialism. In other words, FHC understood, along with leading PSDB leaders, that the Washington Consensus is called a consensus for good reason: there is a set of economic truths (pejoratively called neo-liberals) that are no longer the subject of debate. FHC followed these ideas, but he was heavily opposed by the PT for this.

Since the founding of the PT, in the late 1970s, Lula’s speech was quite radical, explicitly wishing to transform Brazil into a large Cuba. But Lula himself surrendered to the Washington Consensus in the early 2000s, and only then was he able to be elected president. Once in office, however, Lula commanded one of the greatest corruption scandals in world history. In addition, his historical links to the left were never erased. Although in his first term economic policy was largely liberal, this trend changed in his second term and in the presidency of his successor, Dilma Rousseff.

Today Brazil is still living in an economically difficult period, but an ironic result of more than a decade of left-wing government (especially the PT) is the strengthening of conservative and libertarian groups in Brazil. In the elections from 2002 to 2014 it was virtually impossible to identify candidates clearly along these lines. In this year’s election, we expected several candidates to explicitly identify themselves as right-wing. Jair Bolsonaro, the favorite in contention, is not historically a friend of the free market, but his more recent statements demonstrate that more and more he leans in this direction.

It is possible that in 2018 Brazil will not yet elect an explicitly libertarian president. But even so, the economic transformations initiated by FHC seem now to be vindicated. Only with the strengthening of the Internet did Brazilians have real access to conservative and libertarian ideas. With that, one of the most important political phenomena in Brazil in the last decade is the discovery of these ideas mainly by young people, and it is these young people who now cry for a candidate who defends their ideas. Bolsonaro seems to be the closest to this, although there are others willing to defend similar economic policy. After more than a decade of governments on the left, it seems that Brazil is finally going through a well-deserved right turn.

Explaining Jair Bolsonaro to non-Brazilians

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , ,

I wrote about Jair Bolsonaro here some time ago, but I believe that, with the recent political changes in Brazil, it is worthy to write about him again.

Jair Messias Bolsonaro is a pre-candidate to the Brazilian presidency. Elections will happen in October, and so, following Brazilian electoral law, his candidacy won’t be official until later this year. However, it is already very public that he is going to run for president of the country.

Bolsonaro has been a congressman from Rio de Janeiro state since the 1990s, but he only achieved national notoriety fairly recently, during the last decade of government by the Worker’s Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT, in Portuguese). A former captain of the Brazilian army, he entered politics mainly to defend the interests of his colleagues. As with much of South America at some point between the 1960s and 1980s, Brazil was ruled by the military from 1964 to 1985. Since those governments, there is a tendency of loss of prestige of the armed forces in the country. Bolsonaro defended simply better pay and better work conditions for his fellow soldiers.

In the 1990s he opposed several policies of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) government. FHC was responsible for bringing Brazil closer to the Washington Consensus, modernizing the Brazilian economy in many ways. Bolsonaro, however, believed that FHC was selling Brazil to foreigners. Ironically, in that opinion, he was in the company of the Worker’s Party. When the Worker’s Party came to power in 2003, Bolsonaro remained in silence for quite a while. His public opposition to the Lula and Dilma governments began only when the Ministry of Education tried to send to public schools material concerning gender ideology. Bolsonaro and others saw in that an infringement of the separation between the responsibilities of church, government, and state.

Because of his opposition to gender ideology in public schools, Bolsonaro is constantly unjustly accused of misogyny and homophobia, something silly to say the least. Bolsonaro is not a hater of women and homosexuals, at least not more than the majority of the Brazilians. The only thing one can say about him is that, as with many Brazilians, he is very crude with his language. One anecdote might help to explain. When Bolsonaro was already father to four sons, he had his first daughter. Joking, he told his friends that “he’d got weaker.” To many in the Brazilian leftist press, this means that Bolsonaro thinks that women are lesser than men. The same press, however, is not as judicial with the language of other politicians, including former president Lula da Silva, who commonly makes much worse statements. Bolsonaro’s every statement has been scrutinized by people on the left searching for something to blame.

The truth is that apparently unknowingly, Bolsonaro was one of the first Brazilian politicians to consistently fight against Gramscianism. I explain. As I was saying before, from 1964 to 1985 Brazil was ruled by the military. This happened because since the 1920s Brazil was a target of influence by the USSR. Luís Carlos Prestes, one of the most important historical leaders of the Brazilian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Brasileiro, PCB, in Portuguese), trained in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. All leftist parties in Brazil today (including the Worker’s Party) have some historical connection to the PCB. The Soviets (and Chinese, and Cubans) intensified their pressure on Brazil in the 1950s and 1960s. The result was that the vast majority of Brazilian society urged the militaries to take power in 1964.

The armed forces were great in fighting the conventional war against the communists, defeating several guerrillas in the Brazilian interior. But they were simply awful in fighting the cultural war. Early on, many on the Brazilian left noticed that they shouldn’t fight the government in a conventional Marxist-Leninist style, trying to come to power by force. Instead, they should follow Italian socialist leader Antonio Gramsci, and get to power winning hearts and minds first. And so they did. While the soldiers were busy fighting guerrillas, communist occupied schools, universities, the press, and even churches (mainly the Roman Catholic) by the Liberation Theology.

Thanks to Gramsci and his followers, when the military regime was over, Brazilian culture was majorly leaning to the left. The Worker’s Party, publicly socialist, came to power not by force, but by votes. However, Marxism as an economic agenda died a long ago. Lula and Dilma know perfectly well that classical liberalism is the way to go in economics. The aim of the Worker’s Party and associated political groups – most of whom are economically illiterate – is to transform culture. In post-marxism, the “oppressed” are no longer the factory workers, but women, homosexuals, blacks and however fits their agenda for power. We have to sympathize with some of the leftist agenda in Brazil. Historically, thanks to the false capitalism practiced there, Brazil was not a good place for minorities. The individual was never privileged in Brazil. However, the leftist solution (socialism) only makes things worse. Many countries in Latin America, starting with Cuba and Venezuela, can testify to that.

Back to Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro came to the opposition of the Worker’s Party because of the falsely progressive agenda the ruling party was trying to implement. However, since then, Bolsonaro is becoming more and more convinced of the entirety of the liberal-conservative agenda, including its economics. By liberal-conservative I mean the tradition of John Locke, Adam Smith, the Founding Fathers, Edmund Burke, Von Mises and others. Bolsonaro was intelligent and honest enough to cry that “the king is naked.” The Brazilian left doesn’t care about minorities. If they did, they would be conservative or libertarian. Classical liberal ideas have a proven record of helping the poor and the oppressed. Socialism continues to hurt everybody but the very few in power.

The leftist media covering Brazil is frightened and trying everything possible to denigrate Bolsonaro. However, so far their strategy is backfiring. Bolsonaro’s popularity in Brazil grows with every attack. On the internet, his followers call him “Mito” (Myth, in Portuguese). In every city that he visits he is followed by a large crowd of fans. In that sense, he is very much a Brazilian Donald Trump. The left insisted so much on talking about minorities that now the large minority that doesn’t fit into leftist stereotypes found his candidate.

Brazil has severe problems and one solution: rule of law. Bolsonaro seems to be not a populist, but someone who understands that society and economy need order to thrive. And it is becoming very apparent that, to the despair of the left, he might be the next Brazilian president.

Time for optimism in Brazil

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Politics , , , , ,

If you only read left-leaning newspapers, things might appear dismal in Brazil right now. But I am very convinced that it isn’t so.

With former president Lula in jail, it becomes more and more likely that Jair Messias Bolsonaro will be Brazil’s next president.

I already wrote about Bolsonaro here. To sum things up, I don’t think that he is a libertarian champion. Far from it. There are many things about Bolsonaro that will displease those who are more market-friendly. He is still too nationalistic in his economic thinking. He fails to see how awful the military government in Brazil (1964-1985) was (even though the alternative – Brazil turning into a South-American USSR – was even worse). But Bolsonaro represents something extremely important: the left is losing the culture war in Brazil. After decades of hegemony in Brazil, Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School seem to be on the ropes. People are so sick and tired of cultural Marxism that they are willing to elect someone whose agenda is to fight against it.

Maybe a world with Bolsonaro president is not the best of worlds. Maybe he is very much a Brazilian Donald Trump. But it is certainly good to know that cultural Marxism is turning against itself and that now Brazilians might be willing to elect a president that, although only moderately market-friendly, is not ashamed to call himself a conservative.