The eight businessmen who defended a military coup, if Lula wins in a clean election, would have different luck in the United States. The Constitution’s First Amendment would be invoked to protect the right to exchange sordid messages — such as those revealed by the Metrópoles website —, bank accounts would not be blocked or cell phones seized so quickly.
And, to be accepted by the Supreme Court, which in the US does not issue monocratic decisions, the accusation against the rogues would have to go through other instances.
It is necessary to know whether minister Alexandre de Moraes made his decision based on findings from another investigation, the one that is running in secret, about material support of the same wealthy fascism “fanboys” for the September 7 demonstrations last year.
The purchasing power of American business class politicians would make scoundrels like Marco Aurélio Raymundo, a surfer doctor and illiterate gaucho who defended the bloodshed —of others, of course—convinced that an armed coup would be good for his cash flow, envy. forever stained Mormaii brand.
In 2010, the US Supreme Court made one of the most damaging decisions for the democratic system when it equated limits on corporate funding of politicians with limits on freedom of expression. Until then, electoral laws that regulated campaign funds had been in force for more than a century and were seen as a legitimate tool to fight corruption.
When dollars are treated as words, whoever controls the most figures speaks louder, of course. The fetish with the First Amendment in the US is such that the press, for whom it is oxygen, shows timidity in covering the so-called “dark money” that degrades the political system and robs the population of rights that were no longer questioned, such as social services, clean air, clean water and access to healthcare.
Does anyone believe that there is an orange jumpsuit in the future of the octogenarian José Isaac Peres, billionaire owner of the shopping mall company Multiplan, a boob who pretends to believe that Datafolha’s polls are conspiracy, not statistics? I do not.
If we want to start a timid national healing after this catastrophic presidency, the group of powerful facilitators who hate Brazil must face the infamy in the square of public opinion.
People like André Tissot, from the Sierra of Rio Grande do Sul, of luxury furniture, who regretted that there was no coup shortly after taking office in 2019 (“We would have gained ten more years”), are not expected to have any public contrition for arguing that 150 million Brazilians went to the polls in 2018 to lose the right to vote. Only those who have some moral compass feel shame.
But there is a way to make the price of degradation seen in the messages that businessmen typed in secrecy more expensive, and we are already seeing examples in the contempt reaction of the Faria Lima gang, who would never be accused of being visionaries of democratic freedom.
It is legitimate to make these conspirators famous, to publish photos, which appear on the public websites of the companies; advocate brand boycotts; keep the memory of their depravity alive every time they start a new venture.
There is a gem of a New York family, owners of Manhattan-based companies, now exiled in Florida. There is no fundraiser, museum gala or Broadway debut that welcomes one of the five adults surnamed Trump.
