Take this gringo’s thoughts with a grain of salt, but it is heart warming to see the continuation of Lula’s Molecular Revolution that Félix Guattari wrote about and the resurgence of a Pink Tide in South America.
Obviously, Lula’s missions to end deforestation and end hunger in Brazil are reason enough for his election in and of themselves. But it’s my hope that his policies do not end there. His base is sub-proletariat. Brazilians who come from a history of discrimination, have been themselves racially discriminated against, or have been otherwise left behind by neoliberal global industrialization. He needs to combat that very neoliberal hegemony to both lift those impoverished masses and prevent the rising mumbling of a US-style crypto-fascist coup at the same time.
I’m under no illusion here. Lula is a Democratic Socialist so this push against global capital will be an uphill battle. He needs to bring Bolsonaro’s lower middle class base into his coalition without conceding ground to the right like is so common for the Democrats in the US. He could do this through worker and union protections. Price caps on everyday goods depended on by working families. Increasing funding to children’s programs and SUS funding would also do a lot for this demographic. Convince them that their enemy is not minorities and communists, but global capital. However, I do believe this route would be thankless. The evangelical section of Brazilian society has been thoroughly astroturfed by the US over the last century. He will likely never win over this demographic outwardly, but idealism cannot overcome materialism. When the lower middle class, the section of society most historically susceptible to fascist rhetoric and trickery, is materially provided for, their yearning for dominance over those below them in the social strata dissolves. Psychologically, as documented by Wilhelm Reich, the single greatest factor in anti-fascist policy is the sexual liberation of women. Lula’s anti-abortion stance should be seen as a “deal with the devil” to entice this demographic and is a calculated misstep in an otherwise progressive agenda. The line for Lula to walk here is protecting the family while empowering the women the traditional authoritarian family structure suppresses. A difficult line to walk, but one Cuba recently addressed in their expanding of the legal definition of family.
Two of the most intriguing aspects of a Lula administration is BRICS and the Sur. I’ve heard little said about both of these things strangely enough. Breaking from the neoliberal hegemony could be leveraged through increased coordination with BRICS, a collection of countries who stand to gain from a multipolar global economy. There is a chance to increase the national sovereignty of these nations by developing fairer international trade which is non dependent on the US dollar. In this same vein, in May, Lula put forward the idea of a South American currency called the Sur. This would collectivize South America and make them a global power in the same way the EU rose Europe’s bargaining power on the world stage and protected its poorest nations from entities like the IMF. Through an idea like the Sur, Brazil has a chance to be for South America what Germany is to the EU.
Finally, it would be incredible to see a resurgence of the anti-corruption policies of Dilma’s administration. Obviously this would be playing with fire considering what happened last time the left tried to enact anti-corruption policies, but it is a necessity for any leftist administration to weed out the influence of private interests in public governance, especially after Bolsonaro’s wholesale gifting of the public sector to private foreign interests. There is a contradiction that should be made public: the left is put under more scrutiny than the right when it comes to corruption because right-wing corruption is done “above the table.” The right can simply say they are letting the private market dictate cost and “efficiency” when they privatize public resources and get rich in the process. This, obviously, in addition to rampant right-wing “under the table” corruption, is simply thought of as “running the country like a business.” This is the ideology that needs to be purged from the governance. It should always be vilified when a public official takes money to influence their public job. It should be equally vilified when representatives of the private sector are allowed public positions or are given public resources. Lula’s anti-corruption should target this “business ontology” as Mark Fisher called it, directly.
To my fellow non-Brazilians, be wary of what the media tells you about Lula in the coming weeks. There will be a lot of “lesser of two evils” talk. This is a lie. Lula is a beloved man of the people. In his words, if he were truly “anti-capitalist” he would’ve led a revolution instead of founding the worker’s party. A leader more akin to a Deng Xiaoping than a Fidel Castro. He is the elected representation of a colonized and exploited people demanding to be protected and doing so through legal means while under the constant threat of foreign intervention and extra-judicial military takeover. Brazil is the lungs of the world, the bread basket of the south, a wonderful synthesis of cultures born out of hardship. It needs to be protected. Now we pray that its institutions hold and that military power has not sunk its tendrils so far into governance the past four years that a peaceful transition cannot be carried out.
Mas e uma dia brilhante. Há tempos difíceis pela frente, mas hoje há esperança e motivo para comemorar. Quando um fascista perde, sempre há motivos para comemorar.
Lula Livre. Vai Brasil.