Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: Bolsonaro exposes the filth of his bowels and his electoral project

The spectacle, the massification of lies and the propaganda of death are typical attitudes of politicians on the fascist spectrum. Jair Bolsonaro is no different. That was the turn of the year for the Brazilian extreme right, even more repugnant in its advanced decomposition, but even for that reason capable of causing more pestilence.

The country is degraded, more people suffer from hunger, disease or misfortunes such as the floods in Bahia. The public administration is more disorganized, sometimes in revolt against sectarian whims of the type that occupies the chair of president, who wants to please the police in order to keep armed phalanxes with them.

There are standard operations of tax auditors, which threaten, for example, the importation of fuels; there is threat of a general strike of servers. Industrial production shrank for the sixth month in a row, which had not been seen since the 2015 recession. recession that begins to appear on the horizon. But there is no government, no attempt at reaction or remedy. Instead.

The captain of death loitered, indifferent to sufferings and disorders, laughing with his savage gauntlet and foaming mouth. He did the show of the rude uncle parading with expensive and noisy toys. It was part of the joke of authenticity, a show that would soon return almost to the teratological indecency of the times of surgeries, during the indigestible hospitalization of the tapado. A part of Bolsonaro’s spectacle is the exposure of his moral and almost literally physical innards: intimacies with the woman he married, the naked body full of tubes, the scars and, now, his monstrous indigestion.

“It was Sunday. I don’t have lunch, I swallow it. It was a fish dish, there were some shrimp too. I chewed the fish and swallowed the shrimp”, he said, explaining his most recent hospitalization.

Indecency, brutality and ugliness are part of the political aesthetics of Bolsonarism. Understanding why shamelessness still moves its phalanges and a little more of the electorate is a problem, but since Bolsonaro’s irruption, such exposure has had some effect. The display of personal, bodily and social slovenliness, his foul mouth, his illiterate and scoundrel language, the slipper, the condensed milk with crumbs scattered across the table, are all part of the phantasmagoria of authenticity.

The show goes further, of course. There are motorcyclists and coup rallies, as well as the appointment of enemies of the homeland, from the traditional menu of the fascist spectrum. There is the fanciful heroism of those who claim to fight against the “system” and the spread of conspiratorial lies that temper this brute. There’s Pharisaism, blasphemies, and the use of God’s name in vain, which amazingly doesn’t shake many religious people. There is the propaganda of death, the criticism of “vaccine perverts” and the indifference to the death of children. All this is tolerated, as if the savior of the homeland and the family had to come dressed as an anti-Christian (which is also the case with Donald Trump).

And? This is the monster that, in October, will try to get votes for reelection or some way to survive politically or out of jail. Those are your resources. Bolsonaro has nothing that any ruler on the edge of the universe of reason and decency could present as an achievement. Its instruments are the threat of death, armed riot, coup and tyranny, the nauseating grotesque and the appeal to the lowest and inhumanly lunatic feelings – the type is indifferent to the death of children, it should be noted.

That was Bolsonaro’s New Year. Why believe that the election year will be different? What else is left for you besides escape? The filthy disorder.