History of the future of the Lula government is fiction – 02/02/2023 – Reinaldo Azevedo

The only “History of the Future” that I read with pleasure is that of Padre Vieira. Right from the start, he observes: “Nothing can be promised to human nature more in line with its greatest appetite, nor more superior to all its capacity, than the news of future times and events (…). The other stories tell past things; this one promises to say what is to come; the others bring to memory those public events that the World has seen; this one tries to reveal to the World those hidden and very dark secrets that do not manage to penetrate the understanding” (Note: the subject of “enough” is “understanding).

This work by Vieira is a Sebastianist vertigo on the emergence of the Fifth Empire, when Portugal would then represent the summit and apex of civilization. It didn’t happen, but I prefer the imagination that lavishes triumph to that which cheapens chaos.

Since Lula was elected, predictions of an imminent overthrow have become routine in a large part of the press, and this Thursday, February 2nd, marks just the 33rd day of his government. As soon as the polls for the first round were switched off, it was asserted that the future composition of Congress anticipated ungovernability. Indeed, today’s gathering is the most reactionary and ignorant in our history.

Ungovernability? On Wednesday (1st), Arthur Lira (PP-AL) and Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), now allies of the PT, were elected for the respective presidencies of the Chamber and Senate. The sewing of the support base in this legislature began last year, when the Transition PEC was voted. Where many anticipated Armageddon, with the victory of the wicked over the God of fiscal responsibility, I saw a solution—given, of course!, “the present time, present men, and present life.” It’s Drummond.

At the time, in this column, I praised the unprecedented feat of an elected president who commanded the approval of an amendment to the Constitution while the government he had just defeated was still in force. It would give the PT the conditions to interfere in the command of a future Congress that, head to head, promised to be hostile — and docile it will not be. It is silly to know whether it will be the economy or politics that will decide Lula’s success or failure. They cannot be dissociated, and there is an alternation in prevalence. Sometimes you have to say, “It’s politics, stupid!”

Vieira identified our appetite for “news of the times and future successes”. And there are always those who don’t comply, hence the fame of the gurus even today, invariably pickaxes. So you say: “Ah, but Lula’s problems start now…” I would dare say that, in two months, he experienced successes worth a mandate. He faced, for example, an attempted coup d’état on the eighth day of his term. The crisis was quelled. In the wake of barbarism, the president replaced the army commander. This is not to say that the “military factor” —or whatever name is given to the will to guardianship—has disappeared. The problem is Brazil’s, not just the president’s. He was born with the Republic. And the answer has to be ours.

There are mistakes, that’s for sure. Progressives tend to feel that the often true superiority of their moral choices overrides the facts. And they neglect the present. It is visible that the government is, for example, mishandling social networks — and the same can be said about the PT. Put the enormity of everything on the scales and ask what place, in the order of emergencies, calls impeachment a “coup” or makes light of the independence of the Central Bank. While this was happening, the extreme right was destroying Pacheco’s reputation and inventing Rogério Marinho as a viable candidate for the Senate. And everything could have turned out for the worst.

I know I quote a lot. It is a dialogue with what has been written before. This time I will quote myself. The more Democrats look backwards to move forward, the more reactionaries will look forward to take society backwards. Care must be taken that progressive idealism is not supplanted by reactionary realism. It’s a lesson from “The German Ideology” by Marx and Engels. I am now going to return to my Vieira and deal with the present time, with the present men, with the present life. No apocalypse.

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