Although the president rehearses an approximation with, the president of, Edinho Silva, does not retreat his classification of the US representative at the height of between Brazil and the USA: “Trump is a fascist.”
The sociologist, former mayor of Araraquara, goes further and says he realizes in the current conjuncture aspects that repeat the period before World War II. “We forget what was the pre-warm war era in. And the way it was normalized what was not normal.”
Edinho Silva will be next week, when he will have meetings with parliamentarians from SPD, the social democrats that make up the government coalition of conservative prime minister, Friedrich Merz. He intends to discuss the rise of the far right world and what he calls the long crisis of capitalism, which began in 2008 and that brought a “right -wing, absurd and violent right -wing,” calendar.
“We couldn’t get out of this crisis,” says Edinho in an interview with Sheeton the consequences of the process to the left and the center left. “The impoverishment of the average sectors generates disbelief, and the first victim of this is liberal democracy.”
The government has just won an important victory in the House, the exemption of income tax …
We open in Brazil the debate on income reform. It is the central debate that the world will have to face in the next period.
Even with the income transfer programs that come from the first Lula administration – and that even Bolsonaro had the courage to cut -. Either the democratic world faces this debate or anything that is done will be palliative.
In my assessment, the 2008 crisis is a long crisis of capitalism that has not been overcome. If it is true that the 2008 economic crisis defeats the concept of globalization, and defeat, because we had a resumption of the conception of the national state, but a xenophobic state, it is also true that we came that we thought we defeated in World War II. Xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, structural racism, all comes with an absurd force.
There is an advance of the financialization of the economy ever since and, along with it, the advance of the concentration of income. This is the great debate of this historical moment we are living on the democratization of income.
and income concentration are two aspects that Donald Trump gathers in this second term. Recently the Lord called him “the greatest fascist of the 21st century.” At the same time, it speaks of chemistry, praises the plan to Gaza.
Do not retreat a millimeter of my characterization of Trump. In the first half of the 20th century, fascism was characterized by territorial expansionism, non -acceptance of the different, authoritarian thinking. Trump assumes his second term saying he will attach Canada, control Panama, occupy Greenland. An expansionism discourse that dates back to the barbarians. He forces the mayor of Washington. It is a racist manifestation.
The way he faces the immigration issue, how he deports handcuffed immigrants… what he has done with immigrant families from Costa Rica only Nazism has done similar, separating families, parents of children. He turned El Salvador into a concentration camp. And what amazes me is that the democratic world often silences. So you can’t say that Trump is not a fascist leader. We forget what was the pre-segundo World War era of Europe. And the way it was normalized by what was not normal.
He made the commercial tariff an instrument of coercion. I have said that Trump is spreading World War III. That will be economical, not war. Clearly, in a war war, as we are seeing in the massacre in Gaza, violence is incomparable, but his will disorganize the economy around the world, break sectors.
Trump authorized [Elon] Musk to build an alliance with Giorgia Meloni in Italy, admittedly fascist, and to make a German pro-Nazi manifestation. It can be a historical error of democratic forces.
It is similarly characterized in Europe, as an expansionist, which invaded Ukraine, who wants to take back all the countries that were satellites of the Soviet Union. It is a dissonant view of the perception of the left in Brazil, of the PT.
I just wanted to finish the previous reflection. President Lula never failed to signal the dialogue. Brazil wants to continue building a relationship with the US, as it has always had. We are dialoguing with the ruler of the time. Brazilian sovereignty is not in negotiation. We will not give up the defense of our institutions, this is not in negotiation either. We will not admit the interference in public policy management, such as Pix, of the right to multilateralism, to the BRICS organization.
Right now on the UN, in dialogue with [Volodimir] Zelenski, President Lula again made himself available for us to create a negotiated way out of valuing peace. Just as it was very emphatic in the defense of Gaza. It has to be penalized for what it has done, of course, because it was absurd violence, but we cannot allow the Palestinian people to be literally decimated due to this confrontation.
I am not in Europe, I do not know what Europeans are facing after this whole conflict, the energy issue, the issue of budgetary expenditure, of all the consequences generated by the war. But I would not compare Putin to Trump for some factors. I do not see Putin chasing immigrants, there is nothing similar from the point of view of persecution to different peoples. You have to seek a negotiated way out for the conflict.
The Lord spoke of the German far right. AFD is a party that argues not to face Putin. Like Viktor Orbán. This is the dissonance of Brazil. There are atrocities attributed to Moscow, Ukrainian children who were taken from their families and taken to interference in …
The PT does not defend and will never defend any kind of violence. It’s not part of our history. On the contrary, the party has always argued that conflicts are resolved through dialogue through negotiations. In Europe, I want to understand more closely the criticism that SPD and democratic forces have done. I think it is a form, an experience for us to understand the criticism and, of course, understanding them, I of course come back to Brazil and make here the necessary explanations regarding this understanding of the conflict.
What we have publicly defended is to establish a space for dialogue. The UN is very weakened. It is attacked daily by Trump. We have to strengthen the UN, return its protagonism, make it a great instrument of overcoming conflicts.
You will meet SPD members who are in the government coalition in Germany. Last weekend, they suffered a historic defeat, lost Dortmund City Hall after 79 years in power. It is an industrial region, in decay, that illustrates well the current challenges of the left and the center left.
If we compare what happened before World War II with what we are living today, let’s find some points that characterize the conjuncture. First, a long crisis of capitalism. We had in 1929, lasted until after the war. We have been living one now since 2008, and we can’t get out of it.
The world economy has failed to grow sustainably, and this impoverishment of the world takes mainly the average sectors. We may have some differentiations depending on the country, but the average sectors are the most penalized, there is no maintenance of consumption capacity, expectations in relation to the future. This impoverishment of the average sectors generates disbelief, and the first victim of this is liberal democracy.
We have to have the courage to defend the interests of the working class, those who are victims of this process of the long crisis of capitalism. We have to rethink representative democracy. More than ever, direct democracy has to be valued.
Direct democracy like? Plebiscite?
We have experiences in Brazil, Germany also has. For example, the participatory budget, where society defines what is the priority of the budget, becomes protagonist of the process. The concept of liberal democracy, as we conceive the democracy of vote, is distancing itself from the real life of society.
We have to face the great fortunes in the world. And we cannot give up facing climate urgency. Because this is historical. Because the world will pay a very expensive price for the destruction of nature. These are the challenges of the left.
Although Europe recognizes Brazil’s role on the environmental issue, exploration at the mouth of the Amazon is criticized.
It is because I think there is a reading distance. The PT has argued that a country with as many poverty as Brazil, with as many social deficits, cannot give up wealth. It would be inconsequential. That funds are created with these resources for forest recovery, technology against deforestation and for the.
What are we going to offer alternative to the peoples living in it? The European look cannot understand that, in several states, the Legal Amazon voter has become a right -wing voter. We need to look at real life and think of a project for them.
Edinho Silva, 60
PT President since August, he is a sociologist graduated from UNESP and Master in Production Engineering from UFSCar. Mayor of Araraquara (SP) for four terms (2001 to 2008 and 2017 to 2024), was councilor, state deputy, minister of the Secretariat of Social Communication of Dilma Rousseff and coordinator of Lula’s presidential campaign in 2022. He began his militancy in the Pastoral Pastorals of the Catholic Church and has been affiliated to the Workers Party since 1985.
