That Brazil is experiencing, in the current situation, a political Malaise should not be surprising. This is a constitutive feature of our republican experience, in which interregnums of civic enthusiasm are spasmodic. A century ago, this malaise was already manifesting itself in the disenchantment of the first republican generation. As he wrote —whose posthumous work “À Margina da História da República” (1933) brings together bitter reflections on the failures of republican governments—, “the great and sad surprise of our generation was the feeling that Brazil had regressed.”
There was talk, as today, of democratic and political setbacks. For Cardoso, history “should not be a manufacturer of praise or a greasy deposit of posthumous criticism”; she must point out the country’s resounding failure in vital areas such as public education — “our tragedy.”
In literature, no one expressed civic disenchantment like Lima Barreto. Just over a century ago, he observed that “politics is not a great idea of guiding our destinies; but rather a vulgar speculation of positions and bribes”. Little has changed. The debate on positions and bribes has been banned since the EA, in the name of an alleged “criminalization of politics”. The result was the dismantling of institutional practices, instead of correcting deviations: the baby was thrown out with the bathwater. The challenge doubled.
Less than a third of Brazilians believe that the country is in the right direction, according to Quaest. The —of which the scandal is an example— gained pharaonic proportions and widespread reach, even involving the Judiciary. An atmosphere of Anything Goes was created. Now it is intertwined with the perception that organized crime has penetrated the bowels of the State. Added to this is the assessment — hasty and mistaken, as I analyzed — that we narrowly escaped the collapse of democracy.
The ambassador evoked the image of “The Exterminating Angel”, of: the guests want to leave the party, but, for an inexplicable reason, they are unable to get through the exit door. “This image reminds us of what is happening in Brazil right now.”
The New Republic is marked, however, by a pattern of malaise distinct from previous periods. There is an additional dimension here with institutional roots: they result from our consensualist design. Coalition presidentialism, as it has been consolidated, generates what democratic theory calls low (or non-existent). This arises from party fragmentation and the hyper-minority nature of the Executive.
What makes the Brazilian case unique is the exacerbation of this problem by a hyper-protagonist Judiciary. When responsibility for decisions and results is diffuse, civic cynicism thrives: voters do not know who to punish or reward. The Executive transfers responsibilities to the Legislative and Judiciary — and vice versa. More than that: the very boundaries between government and opposition blur in the formation of unusually heterogeneous coalitions.
There is no decision paralysis, but a lack of direction.
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