It seems that there is a fight when there is a lack of bread, but the fight also occurs when there is a surplus of holy food.
Flávio Bolsonaro seems to be having more difficulty placating domestic disagreements than the anger of his opponents. Not a week goes by without someone talking about the intrigues involving Flávio, his brothers and his father’s wife. Trying to placate this gossip is putting your hand in a hornet’s nest.
The first time I heard the phrase “in the house that has no bread, everyone screams and no one is right” was back in the 1980s on a morning program on the now extinct Excelsior radio, with journalist Ferreira Neto. I figured it wasn’t anything new, but I found it interesting, as it’s almost always true.
Leftover bread in this house
The episodes of the Bolsonarista family, involving Flávio, Eduardo, Carlos, Renan and Michelle, show another side of this old and well-worn phrase. If we analyze, until very recently, Flávio’s unthinkable candidacy for president and the results of the most recent surveys, which put him in first place in the polls, there must have been plenty of bread in this house.
Well, it seems that there is a fight when there is a lack of bread, but the fight also occurs when there is a surplus of holy food. When there is a shortage, they fight because there is a fight over the crumbs and the need for someone to be blamed for the shortage. When there is enough, they fight because the majority wants a piece of those laurels.
Everyone thinks they have the right
Just as family harmony ends at the time of the will, politics is no different. Why him and not me? After all, I have more influence with the electorate, I have endured the president’s hardships up close, I know exactly what he wants for the future of the country. Ah, but I have more experience and I was anointed to run by the president himself.
In these 50 years working as a public speaking teacher, I have seen a little of almost everything. I remember a very important family of politicians in a certain region of the country. Everyone took a course with me. Not only the candidates, but also their wives, who played a leading role in the campaign. As soon as the election period began, they appeared in droves. As almost everyone was elected, speech training became a kind of amulet.
There was no vacancy
It turns out that after a while the family grew and there were no more positions for everyone. There was, therefore, dissent. The dissidents and their heirs did not give up attending my school. They wouldn’t miss the rabbit’s foot for anything. That’s when I almost fell backwards. I had to pinch myself to believe what I was hearing.
One of them, quite young, had been raised with his cousins. He went to his aunt’s house practically every day to play, drink tea and eat cake. When it was time to practice his speech, he began to reveal the secrets he had learned during those fun days with his cousins. I interrupted him the first time and warned him that this type of revelation could turn against him. What what! The answer was harsh and assertive: professor, it’s nothing personal, it’s just politics.
Friendly fire
It is not difficult to deduce that everyone suffered electoral losses. With this intrigue, they opened space for competitors to create wings and take a share of the voters. In other words, with that friendly fire you didn’t even need to be very adversarial to have an advantage.
Flávio, although benefiting from his father’s nomination, is the biggest loser in this dispute. After selling that he is a moderate, balanced, sensible person, to perhaps differentiate himself from his father’s belligerent spirit, he needs to continue with the costume. He always tries to show this calming side. He rightly says that the enemy is on the other side and that in the end everyone ends up understanding and walking together in the campaign.
Hope or conviction?
It seems to be more of a hope than a conviction. It can’t be easy. Having to face Lula with all his political experience and the government machine in hand, put up with his right-wing competitors, who hope he has a falter and starts to fall in the polls, and, on top of that, his family.
Perhaps family members are the hardest nut to crack. As Aristotle said in the “Art of Rhetoric”: “All who have peers or appear to have them will feel envy. I call peers those who are equal to us by birth, parentage, age, disposition, reputation, property in general.”
Relative feels jealous
And to conclude the reasoning in the attempt to understand the raids of the Bolsonaro clan, once again the Greek philosopher clarifies: “We envy people close to us due to time, place, age and reputation. Hence the proverb: relatives also know how to be envious.”
Nothing new, therefore, at “Captain” Abrantes’ headquarters. 2,400 years ago, Aristotle, called “intelligence” by Plato, already revealed this perverse feeling that is embedded in people’s hearts. In all these centuries nothing has changed. On the contrary, it gives the impression that it has taken root even more deeply.
May Flávio have good luck in this home fight. Who knows, a scare with some kind of choking in the next surveys, missing some bread, could mean that the family stops being supportive only in photos, but also in their day-to-day activities. Follow on Instagram: @polito
*This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Jovem Pan.
