Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: After political gunning, all that remains is terrorism

For a year and a half, various institutions in the United States have sought to establish responsibility for the invasion of the Capitol, the building where deputies and senators meet. Congress is now trying to determine whether Donald Trump also incited the murderous revolt against the 2020 election result.

Despite our history of coups, state terrorism and violence in general, since the end of the military dictatorship or, at least, after the 1988 Constitution, we have not had the threat of political mutiny, armed subversion, or violent revolt against democracy.

Since 2019, a man has held the post of president who has on his record the defense of genocide, civil war, military dictatorship and torture. In office, he repeatedly said that he could cancel elections and that he would disobey the decisions of the Federal Supreme Court.

On Thursday of last week, July 7, this man occupied 25 of the 45 minutes of his weekly presentation, of his “live”, to attack the electronic voting machines, the result of the 2014, 2018 and 2020 elections and ministers of the Supreme in the Superior Electoral Court.

Shortly after the start of his harangue on “live”, he said the following: “You know what’s at stake. You know how to prepare not for a new Capitol, nobody wants to invade anything, but we know what we have to do before the elections”. Jair Bolsonaro also said that he would not need to “finish” what would be in “each one of us’s heads and mine too”. As the Defense Minister said, “election is a matter of national security.”

The cryptic message can fit whatever is “in the head of each one of us” (or theirs), from the most politically perverse people to the most just mentally disturbed. There should be no preparation “for a new Capitol”, but the parallelism is evident: what is the alternative preparation?

This is the message of someone who repeatedly affirms that “an armed people will not be enslaved”, an evident declaration of distrust in the democratic order or also of subversion, in short, of contempt for the idea of ​​a monopoly on the legal use of force by authorities of the Republic.

This is a man who has praised militiamen. Who says in public, as if he had nothing to do with the matter (an irresponsible person), that certain territories are under the control of crime and that no one should venture there, as Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira did.

It is the government of an individual that encourages the dismantling and demoralization of institutions. The invasion and destruction of the forest gained momentum with the ruin of Ibama and Funai. A bandit who claims to be a businessman, associated with criminal mining, is thus comfortable ordering Ibama helicopters to be set on fire, as in January 2022. Others finance coup rallies.

If Inpe reports the widespread destruction of the Amazon, the president of Inpe resigns. If the destruction of the MEC is too scandalous, the ministers are changed in order to stifle the scandal. If Petrobras or the Federal Police don’t obey, it’s the direction. If Health wants to manage the epidemic in a rational way, military control. If reelection is difficult, to the garbage with public spending laws. Nothing is safe.

From the defense of civil war, generalized or molecular, to the promise of a coup, the project is one of destruction, under the almost explicit threat of gunfire or bombs. For now, we have only seen individual action, the “Christian”, “pro-gun”, “against abortion” that kills the PT, “this is Bolsonaro”.

Now all that’s missing is the organization for terror, like a Riocentro bombing, a military riot, like Jacareacanga or Aragarças (1950s), a snarky crowd. Like Trump, Bolsonaro may have nothing to do with it.