The start of the Biden government confirms the fear in the tense weeks after the election, which culminated in the violent invasion of the Capitol on January 6. There are not trillions that the new government will pump into the economy to fight inequality, promote social justice, or create jobs in infrastructure works that can appease a section of Americans.
Polarization is the economic model of the Republican far-right, whose viability in power depends on the agitation of a smaller and smaller electorate. When Congress approved the latest stimulus package, a Mississippi Republican voted against it, later bragging to his constituents about the benefits the package would bring to the state.
After the attack on the Capitol, the word atonement was often used here. But there was no push for redemption at the top of the Republican Party.
The protests by the Brazilian military, on the anniversary of the start of the dictatorship which they call redemptive, show that they understand both reconciliation and the civilian instigators of the crowd in the collapse of Congress in Washington.
Efforts in recent days to distance themselves from extremism also show how the Trump and Bolsonaro administrations have left wounds that will not be healed by an electoral cycle.
On Sunday (28) on CNN, Dr. Deborah Birx, a former member of the Trump pandemic task force, confessed what she had not had the courage to say at press conferences next to the president : After the first wave of infections that killed 100,000 people, the next 450,000 deaths could have been “significantly reduced”.
In other words, she attributed the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives to the murderous negligence of a president. Does this sound tragically familiar to you? Dr. Birx’s theater of atonement has sparked outrage.
In Brazil, after the chaotic Monday, soldiers exiled by Jair Bolsonaro began to blow up his convenient narrative. They are legalists who are paying the price for refusing to politicize force or tolerate a coup adventure. Were they hibernating in the halls of power two years ago?
The collaboration between the two most dangerous presidents in the history of the United States and Brazil will not be appeased by talks, with or without the protection of anonymity.
Recently, a close relative of a reader who writes to me regularly, a politically moderate Paulista, told him: “If Bolsonaro had an SS, I would report you.” She spoke of the Nazi secret police as a solution to political disagreement.
What reconciliation is possible?
LINK PRESENT: Did you like this column? The subscriber can release five free accesses from any link per day. Just click on the blue F below.