Slow-Motion Coup

The president of the Republic and the extremists who have free rein in his government have a dictatorship project for Brazil; in practice, it is the only project they have. They may not yet have an operational plan for this, nor have they formulated in a coherent way what they want. They may not currently be holding meetings to discuss the issue in concrete terms — what will actually be done, when, how, where, and by whom. It may be more a set of desires than an objective, realistic, and intelligent plan to carry out something of this magnitude. It certainly requires competence, courage, and basic notions of effectiveness that Lula does not have, nor the PT, nor the far-left that surrounds him. It may also be that all of this requires a volume of work that none of them are willing to face — or presents risks they do not want to assume. It may be, in short, that many fat cats in the government are more concerned with accumulating money right now than with facing the difficulties of getting involved in such a business. Above all, it may be that it will not succeed; wanting is one thing, achieving is another. But that is what they are aiming for, as evidenced by everything they have done so far in their concrete actions in government — a dictatorship in Brazil, with the state machinery transformed into private property of the PT and other left-wing factions, the material interests of the pirate-elite protected by the new regime, and Lula promoted to the functions of a lifelong president, or something similar. He, and only he — without Lula, of course, none of this exists.

The most recent, most obvious, and most didactic demonstration of this dictatorship under construction is the censorship project that the president of the Chamber, the PT, and the left-wing parties, in one of those shenanigans that give the average Brazilian deputy the reputation they have, have just prepared for approval. (Read the following report.) The rapporteur of the project on “Freedom, Responsibility, and Transparency on the Internet” (that is the official name they gave to the gag law) is a communist representative. Is there anything more to say? How can one believe that a communist deputy would be capable of defending any law in favor of freedom? This does not exist — it has never existed in the history of communism, and it will not start now. Anyway, even if the rapporteur were the Archangel Gabriel, the poison would be the same for democracy — the law, to speak in plain English and without the wall of hypocrisy they have built around it, creates and hands over to the government a censorship mechanism in Brazil. Through it, the “State”, which in practice means Lula and his entire System, gains the power to decide what citizens can or cannot say on the internet — and what they can read and listen to. The government is authorized to prohibit, fine, and punish any post it classifies as fake news, or “disinformation”, or carrying “harmful” content. The practical effect is the annulment of Article 5 of the Federal Constitution, that guarantees freedom of expression. It is the worst attack on freedom that Brazil has suffered in over 50 years — since the AI-5 of the military regime.

The left says that’s not the case, of course; they claim they want to bring order to the “internet jungle,” eliminate the publication of lies in Brazil, put an end to “fake news,” and achieve other virtuous goals. That’s not it at all. How could it be, if the very title of the new law is a crude fake news? It says there: “Freedom Law,” etc., etc., etc. — but from the first line, they start cutting freedom. Behind its pretentious, semi-literate, and devoid of signs of intelligent life verbiage, the text, to sum up this opera, creates no rights: it only imposes obligations, prohibitions, and penalties. It paves the way, as the censorship enforcement body, for an aberration — a “National Council” that will decide what is true or false in Brazil. In real life, it will be a Police Station to prohibit the publication of everything the government doesn’t want to be published — or do you think the “Council” will be an impartial authority, with opposition members and free from political influences? Can anyone honestly believe that such a body will speak up when Lula says, for example, that the investigation into the organized crime plans to assassinate Senator Sergio Moro and other authorities, carried out by the Federal Police and Public Prosecutor’s Office, was “a setup by Moro?” And when he says that Brazil’s economy didn’t grow “absolutely anything” in 2022 — will that be considered fake news? A hint: the STF’s perpetual investigation into fake news has lasted four full years, but so far not a single left-wing activist, not even one, has been indicted, or even called to testify. Another: no democracy in the world has a law to control the internet; all dictatorships, from Cuba to China, have their own. The question that remains is straightforward. Are they trying to build a democracy or a dictatorship, with their law that establishes censorship in Brazil?

Lula and his System’s idea is not to stage a coup, in the common style of coups that you know. There will be no tanks on the streets, no marine troops taking over the electrical power center, and no closure of Congress or any other “institution”. There will be no joint session of the Chamber and Senate to announce the new regime — to be officially described, of course, as a heroic effort to save “democracy” in Brazil. The intention is to build a dictatorship step by step, with administrative acts, rulings from the Supreme Federal Court and its collection of “superior courts” in Brasília, presidential decrees, and so on. They will annul laws legitimately approved by Congress — all those that stand in their way. They will annul, through the STF, even previous STF decisions, claiming that “time has passed” and reality is now “different”. They will multiply “provisional measures” giving themselves more power, create repression services within the state structure, and impose censorship on social media, as explained above. They will “interpret” the Constitution in a way that makes legal everything they want and illegal everything they don’t want. They will eliminate rights, put opponents in jail by acts of will of the Judiciary, and expropriate private property through bank account freezes, fines, and “demonetization” measures. In short: they will build, with decrees from the Planalto Palace, STF rulings, and tricks in Congress, a legal dictatorship — and from there, demand that everyone obeys the legality they themselves created. This is precisely what they have been doing for years in a row and, even more so, since they came to power. It has all the hallmarks of tyranny — or something so similar that one cannot tell the difference.

Lula’s concrete actions as president do not show a politician in the normal course of his activity leading the country — that is, trying to show results, attract support, and be reelected in the next election based on the projects he delivered, the tangible improvements he brought to the population, or the outcomes his government achieved. Lula and the “L” System do the exact opposite of all that. Why are they acting this way? The impression is that the president does not show, in the world of visible realities, the slightest interest in having a good government. He does not work positively. In four months at the Planalto Palace, he managed not to generate a single piece of good news for the population or even start the construction of a bus shelter. His government is a disaster-producing factory, building an economic crisis comparable to Dilma Rousseff’s worst moments and has the confidence of no one, except for himself and Globo Network. He made no effort to bring into the government the forces that sided with him against Bolsonaro — to truly include them, not to pretend “consensus” by appointing nonentities like the former senator he used to call “Simone Estepe” and who, for practical purposes, has no authority even in the block surrounding her ministry. He creates enemies he did not have and problems that did not exist with each decision he makes. If he is doing all this, it is because he wants to — or, more precisely, because he has no desire to do otherwise. And if he has no desire, it is because he thinks it is not necessary.

In the world of realities, Lula has consistently received support from the Supreme Federal Court (STF), which has granted itself absolute powers, and is blindly obeyed by the Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber in every matter. The STF governs Brazil in all matters it claims for itself, from WhatsApp conversations to the creation of crimes not provided for in the law. It has invented perpetual flagrant crimes, inquiries that annul the Constitution, and the trial of defendants in “batches”. It detained a federal deputy for nine months and will decide, after detaining him again, whether the legal pardon he received from the president is valid or not. It can remove the same president from public life and, if it wishes, imprison him. It keeps the former Secretary of Security of Brasília in jail, who was in the United States on January 8th, while releasing Lula’s general who was inside the Planalto Palace on the same day, in friendly and peaceful contact with the invaders. It has sided with Lula, or has done so up to now, in 100% of the decisions it makes, or almost that; it complies with almost all requests brought to it by leftist factions. It wants to revive the union tax that Congress abolished by law, and which Lula demands back – even though the STF itself confirmed in 2018 that the legislative decision was legal. The list goes on and on. The truth is that the dictatorship being assembled under Lula’s government has not yet faced any serious challenge from the Supreme Court. If it has been this way so far, why would it start being different?

Lula also counts on the support of the Armed Forces; it is not from there that his plans are expecting problems. The Army Commander, who received 700,000 reais as aid and pecuniary compensation after taking office, says whenever he deems it appropriate that he is in favor of legality. Legality is what the STF says is legal, whatever that may be – and the fact is that it currently places the Army, objectively, on the side of the MST and its land invasions (including state-owned property, as happened with Embrapa), political extremists, and, in a particularly curious case, a communist politician who runs the Institutional Security Office, the current name for the former Military House of the Presidency of the Republic.

The legality that General Tomás Paiva insists on, in fact, places the Brazilian Army in favor of everything Lula is doing – from “decarceration” to the alliance with China and Russia, from promises to give BNDES money to left-wing dictatorships to his statement that “the Amazon is not just ours”. There is no record of anything similar happening in the military history of Brazil.

To the Armed Forces, the STF, and the rest are added the OAB, CUT, the bishops’ union, the “guarantee” lawyers, the “students”, the “social movements”, the socialist businessmen, and most of the media. All are in favor of the dictatorship that already exists today in many aspects; it is not clear why they would be against the same type of dictatorship tomorrow. It is certainly not due to a lack of support that Lula will stop doing what is in his plans.