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SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Four years of madness are nearly over. In a tense second-round runoff, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva prevailed over President Jair Bolsonaro, taking 50.9 percent of the vote. Barring a dramatic turnaround — the dreaded coup that has hung over the country for months, for example — Mr. da Silva will, on Jan. 1, be Brazil’s president.
It wasn’t easy. The past month has been a distillation of the Bolsonaro era. There’s been rampant misinformation. (Mr. da Silva’s campaign had to confirm, in response to wild rumors circulated on social media platforms, that he “had not made a deal with the devil nor has he ever talked to Satan.”) There’s been ample discussion of cannibalism, freemasonry and the supposedly desirable politics of the medieval era. And of course, there’s been the threat of political violence, seemingly blessed from the top.
At last, for the sake of our collective mental health, we can say that Mr. Bolsonaro has been beaten. It is not that the country is strongly aligned with Mr. da Silva and the center-left politics of the Workers’ Party, which governed the country for 13 years, ending in 2016. It’s more that the past four years under Mr. Bolsonaro showed us how low a nation could go and we’re desperate to emerge from the swamp of political despondency.
There’s a lot about the administration I won’t miss — its murderous neglect, its deep-rooted corruption, its fanaticism. One of the greatest reliefs will be no longer having to participate in crazy discussions. Brazil, at last, can get back to a semblance of sanity.
It’s hard to believe how much public debate has shifted. Nine years ago, Brazilians took to the streets in favor of free public transport. How far are we from that sort of civic-mindedness today? Now we spend much of our time asserting (in an increasingly exasperated manner) that virology actually exists and climate change is not a globalist hoax.
We are afraid to take to the streets in protest and give the government a reason to attempt a coup. We think any civilian in a passing car may be armed. We know that wearing red will be seen as a political statement. (A Brazilian Catholic cardinal was recently taken to task over his traditional red clothes, showing that not even the clergy is above suspicion.) We do not dare discuss the news with our neighbors, for fear of what they might say. The elevators have never been so quiet.
The truth is that Brazilian society has always been dominated by conservative forces. None of the advances of the past two decades have come easily — the social welfare program Bolsa Família, affirmative action in universities and the public sector or same-sex marriage. They were all met with derision, if not downright indignation, from most conservatives. But these were battles fought between the center left and the center right, which were then both sufficiently reasonable to engage in democratic debate. That changed when Mr. Bolsonaro arrived on the national scene. Gradually at first and then suddenly, a dam of repressed right-wing extremism burst.
Day after day, the integrity of public discourse has been liquefied by conspiratorial claims, turbocharged by social media and encouraged by Mr. Bolsonaro. We have been obliged to waste our time publicly refuting the theory that vaccines contain nanobots or that, as he put it, the Amazon rainforest “cannot catch fire.” All that energy, which could have gone to demanding a better public health care system or a stronger response to climate change, was instead swallowed up combating lurid nonsense.
But Mr. Bolsonaro gave us no choice, right up to the election. There is little doubt that he aimed for autocracy and would seize any opportunity to remain in power; the need to defeat him became an absolute necessity, taking precedence over every other concern. That explains the breadth of the coalition around Mr. da Silva’s candidacy, which included even previous opponents from the center right. The electoral contest was reduced to a binary: for or against Mr. Bolsonaro.
In truth, it isn’t that simple. For one thing, there is no tangible solution for how social networks seem to push citizens to extreme positions, deepening polarization. For another, politicians endorsed by Mr. Bolsonaro are now an established part of the political landscape. More than a dozen Bolsonaro-supporting governors, out of 27 governors nationwide, were elected, and his party is the largest in the Senate, after winning eight of the 27 seats up for grabs. (Some of the new senators, who will stay in power for the next eight years, are former ministers in Mr. Bolsonaro’s administration.) The far right also increased its influence in Congress: The president’s party won 99 seats in the 513-member lower house. Mr. Bolsonaro may leave office, but Bolsonarismo is far from over.
That poses serious challenges for the incoming administration. Not only will an emboldened far right be a constant thorn in Mr. da Silva’s side, but it will also force him to rely on the parties of the center, opening the way for the — often corrupt — exchange of favors that has marred Brazilian democracy since its inception. Even so, this opportunity for a new political trajectory must not be undervalued. The far right, having occupied the presidency, could be pushed back to the fringes. At the very least, we might get a government concerned more with rising inequality and hunger than with the number of followers at its motorcycle rallies. That alone is a tonic.
Crucially, Brazilians should be able to return to a discussion of more urgent topics, such as the country’s housing deficit, public education, military police and racism. Maybe we could also talk about things that interest and astound us, that give us pleasure. (Turtles and astronomy, anyone?) After all we’ve been through, we deserve to enjoy some respite from the madness.
A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 1, 2022, Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Brazil May Finally Be Free From the Madness of Bolsonaro.
SÃO PAULO, Brasil — Quatro anos de loucura chegaram praticamente ao fim. Em um segundo turno tenso, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva prevaleceu sobre o presidente Jair Bolsonaro, com 50,9 por cento dos votos. Exceto por uma reviravolta dramática — o temível golpe que há meses paira sobre o país, por exemplo — Lula se tornará, em 1 de janeiro, o presidente do Brasil.
Não foi fácil. O último mês foi um resumo da era Bolsonaro. Houve uma quantia desenfreada de desinformação. (A campanha de Lula teve até de confirmar, em resposta a boatos insanos que circularam nas mídias sociais, que o candidato “não tem pacto nem jamais conversou com o diabo.”) Houve ampla discussão sobre canibalismo, maçonaria e o sistema político supostamente preferível da Idade Média. E, é claro, houve a ameaça de violência política, aparentemente encorajada pelo topo.
Finalmente, para o bem da nossa saúde mental coletiva, podemos dizer que Bolsonaro foi derrotado. Não é que o Brasil esteja fortemente alinhado com Lula e a política de centro-esquerda do Partido dos Trabalhadores, que governou o país por 13 anos, terminando em 2016. É mais que os últimos quatro anos de gestão Bolsonaro nos mostraram o quão baixo uma nação pode ir, e estamos desesperados para emergir desse pântano de desalento político.
Há muita coisa dessa gestão que não vai deixar saudades — a negligência assassina, a corrupção arraigada, o fanatismo. Um dos maiores alívios será não precisar mais participar de discussões loucas. O Brasil, enfim, pode voltar a ter uma aparência de sanidade.
É difícil acreditar no quanto o debate público mudou. Nove anos atrás, os brasileiros foram às ruas para pedir a gratuidade no transporte público. Quão longe estamos desse tipo de mentalidade cívica hoje? Agora passamos boa parte do tempo garantindo (de uma forma cada vez mais exasperada) que a virologia de fato existe e a mudança climática não é uma farsa globalista.
Temos medo de ir às ruas protestar e dar ao governo um motivo para tentar um golpe. Achamos que qualquer cidadão passando em um automóvel pode estar armado. Sabemos que usar vermelho será visto como uma declaração política. (Recentemente um cardeal católico brasileiro foi levado a prestar contas sobre suas vestimentas tradicionais, o que mostra que nem mesmo o clero está acima de qualquer suspeição.) Não ousamos discutir as notícias com os vizinhos, por medo do que eles poderão dizer. Os elevadores nunca estiveram tão silenciosos.
A verdade é que a sociedade brasileira sempre foi dominada por forças conservadoras. Nenhum dos avanços das últimas duas décadas veio com facilidade — o programa de assistência social Bolsa Família, as cotas nas universidades e no setor público, ou o casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo. Todos foram recebidos com escárnio, se não com total indignação, pela maior parte dos conservadores. Mas foram batalhas travadas entre a centro-esquerda e a centro-direita, que então eram suficientemente razoáveis para se empenhar em um debate democrático. Isso mudou quando Bolsonaro entrou na cena política nacional. Primeiro aos poucos, e então de modo súbito, uma barragem de extremismo de direita reprimido se rompeu.
Dia após dia, a integridade do debate público se liquefez em alegações conspiratórias, impulsionadas pelas mídias sociais e encorajadas por Bolsonaro. Fomos obrigados a gastar nosso tempo combatendo publicamente a teoria de que vacinas contêm nanobots ou que, como o presidente declarou, a floresta amazônica “não pega fogo.” Toda essa energia, que podia ser gasta exigindo a melhoria do sistema público de saúde ou uma resposta mais enérgica à mudança climática, foi, em vez disso, dissipada no combate a tolices obscuras.
Mas Bolsonaro não nos deu outra chance, inclusive até o momento das eleições. Não há dúvida de que ele tinha como meta a autocracia e iria aproveitar qualquer oportunidade de se manter no poder; a necessidade de derrotá-lo se tornou uma prioridade absoluta, tomando precedência sobre qualquer outra preocupação. Isso explica a amplitude da coalizão em torno da candidatura de Lula, que incluiu até antigos oponentes da centro-direita. A batalha eleitoral foi reduzida a um binarismo: contra ou a favor de Bolsonaro.
Na realidade, não é assim tão simples. De um lado, não há solução tangível para o quanto as redes sociais parecem empurrar os cidadãos a posições extremas, aprofundando a polarização. De outro, os políticos endossados por Bolsonaro agora são parte estabelecida do cenário político. O povo elegeu mais de uma dúzia de governadores que apoiam Bolsonaro, das 27 unidades da federação, e seu partido obteve maioria no Senado após ganhar oito dos 27 assentos à disposição. (Muitos dos novos senadores, que ficarão no poder pelos próximos oito anos, são ex-ministros da gestão Bolsonaro.) A extrema direita também aumentou sua influência no Congresso: o partido do presidente ganhou 99 assentos na Câmara, formada por 513 deputados. Jair Bolsonaro pode até deixar o cargo, mas o bolsonarismo está longe de acabar.
Isso representa sérios desafios à próxima gestão. Não só porque uma extrema direita encorajada será um obstáculo constante para o lado de Lula, mas também porque irá forçá-lo a recorrer aos partidos do Centrão, abrindo caminho para a troca de favores — muitas vezes corrupta — que desfigurou a democracia brasileira desde sua concepção. Ainda assim, a oportunidade para uma nova trajetória política nacional não pode ser menosprezada. Após ocupar a Presidência do país, a extrema direita pode ser empurrada de volta às margens da política. No mínimo teremos um governo mais preocupado com o aumento da desigualdade e da fome, em vez do número de seguidores em suas motociatas de apoio. Só isso já é um alívio.
De modo crucial, os brasileiros poderão voltar a discutir assuntos mais urgentes do país, como o déficit de moradia, a educação pública, a polícia militar e o racismo. Talvez também possamos falar de coisas que nos interessam e nos surpreendem, que nos dão satisfação. (Tartarugas e astronomia, alguém?) Depois de tudo o que passamos, merecemos algum respiro dessa loucura.
Uma versão deste artigo apareceu na versão impressa do New York Times de Nov. 1, 2022, Section A, Page 22 com a manchete: “Brazil May Finally Be Free From the Madness of Bolsonaro”. Trad. da autora.
A man in a shirt with the image of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking to regain Brazil’s presidency, in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. Credit: Silvia Izquierdo/Associated Press
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — “If it’s God’s will, I will continue,” Jair Bolsonaro said in mid-September. “If it’s not, I’ll take off the presidential sash and I will retire.”
It feels too good to be true. After all, Mr. Bolsonaro has spent much of the year casting doubt on the electoral process and seemingly preparing the ground to reject the results. The military, ominously, wants to conduct a parallel counting of the votes. Menace hangs in the air: 67 percent of Brazilians fear political violence, and some may not risk voting at all (a big deal in a country where voting is mandatory). Talk of a coup is everywhere.
Amid this uncertainty, there’s one fact to cling to: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s leftist former president, leads in the polls, with 50 percent of intended votes to Mr. Bolsonaro’s 36 percent. Four years after he was expelled from the political scene, on corruption and money laundering charges later shown to be at best procedurally dubious and at worst politically motivated, Mr. da Silva is back to complete the job. On all available evidence, he is poised to win: if not outright on Sunday, by taking more than 50 percent, then on the election’s second round, on Oct. 30.
We Brazilians are holding our breath. The next few weeks could end a dark period, overseen by one of the worst leaders in our history, or they could usher us even further into catastrophe and despair. It’s all a bit much to take in. I’ve personally decided to spend more time sleeping and cleaning the house — the drapes have never been so white (they were originally beige). Yet no matter how much I distract myself, nothing can relieve me from the apprehension that something may go terribly wrong.
On the surface, things seem calm. An outsider walking through the streets would not get the impression that a presidential election is about to be held. Looking out the window, I notice that the Brazilian flags — which have come to represent support for Mr. Bolsonaro — have been removed from the neighboring facades. An ambiguous sign: It could be a pre-emptive response to defeat, or the calm before the storm. There’s not even much talk among friends and family concerning the election; the lines were drawn in 2018 and have not moved much since then.
Yet for all the social polarization, there is still enormous support for democracy here: 75 percent of citizens think it is better than any other form of government. Right from the beginning, Mr. da Silva has been trying to exploit that common feeling and open up a broad front against Mr. Bolsonaro. He picked a former adversary from the center-right, Geraldo Alckmin, as his running mate; assiduously courted business leaders; and secured endorsements from prominentcentrists. In this comradely atmosphere, supporters of the center-left candidate, Ciro Gomes, currently about 6 percent in polls, may even throw their votes behind the former president. If that happens, Mr. Bolsonaro will surely be beaten.
That glorious prospect does little to dispel the anxiety enveloping the country. It’s physically impossible not to dwell on what might happen. The possibilities are terrifying: The polls might be wrong, and Mr. Bolsonaro could win. The polls might be right, and Mr. Bolsonaro could refuse to concede defeat, and even initiate a coup. Each day now seems to be the length of a day on Venus — around 5,832 hours — to go by the agitation of my Twitter feed.
There’s simply too much at stake. For one, there’s the democratic process itself, which has been put through the wringer by Mr. Bolsonaro. For another, there’s the future of our judiciary. Just next year, there will be two vacant seats on the Supreme Court, out of a total of 11 seats. If in power, Mr. Bolsonaro would surely seize the chance to pick hard-right justices as he did with his last two appointees. A Trump-style remaking of the judiciary could be coming down the line.
Then there’s the environment. So far this year, more forest fires have been recorded in the Brazilian Amazon than in all of 2021, which was already catastrophic enough. Since the start of September, dense plumes of smoke have covered several Brazilian states. Under Mr. Bolsonaro’s administration, deforestation has increased, environmental agencies have been dismantled and Indigenous deaths have risen. Reversing these disastrous environmental policies could not be more urgent.
What’s more, a new government could address the appalling fate of the 33 million people living in a state of food deprivation and hunger — to say nothing of the 62.9 million people (or 29 percent of the population) living below the poverty line. It could also draw down the number of firearms on our streets, which, under Mr. Bolsonaro’s watch, has reached the troublingly high figure of 1.9 million. And, at last, Brazilians might begin to heal from the trauma of 685,000 Covid-19 deaths.
But before all that, there’s a necessary first step: pushing Jair Bolsonaro into retirement. Then we can begin to breathe again.
A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 1, 2022, Section A, Page 23 of the New York edition with the headline: “We Brazilians Are Holding Our Breath”.
A man in a shirt with the image of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking to regain Brazil’s presidency, in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. Credit: Silvia Izquierdo/Associated Press
SÃO PAULO, Brasil — “Se essa for a vontade de Deus, eu continuo”, disse Jair Bolsonaro em meados de setembro. “Se não for, a gente passa a faixa e eu vou me recolher.”
Parece bom demais para ser verdade. Afinal, Bolsonaro passou boa parte do ano lançando dúvidas sobre o processo eleitoral e aparentemente preparando o terreno para rejeitar o resultado. Os militares, de forma alarmante, querem conduzir uma contagem paralela dos votos. A ameaça paira no ar: 67% dos brasileiros temem a violência política, e alguns até podem nem se arriscar a ir votar (uma questão importante em um país onde o voto é obrigatório). Rumores de golpe estão por toda parte.
Em meio a essa incerteza, há um fato em que se agarrar: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, o ex-presidente brasileiro de esquerda, lidera as pesquisas, com 50% das intenções de votos válidos contra 36% para Bolsonaro. Quatro anos depois que ele foi afastado da cena política após acusações de corrupção e lavagem de dinheiro, acusações que posteriormente se revelaram, na melhor das hipóteses, procedimentalmente duvidosas e, na pior, politicamente motivadas, Lula está de volta para concluir o trabalho. A julgar pelas evidências disponíveis, ele está prestes a vencer: se não diretamente no domingo, obtendo mais de 50% dos votos válidos, então no segundo turno, no dia 30 de outubro.
Nós, brasileiros, estamos prendendo a respiração. As próximas semanas podem encerrar um período tétrico, conduzido por um dos piores líderes da nossa história, ou podem nos afundar ainda mais na catástrofe e no desespero. Tudo isso me parece um pouco demais para absorver. Eu pessoalmente decidi passar mais tempo dormindo e limpando a casa — as cortinas nunca foram tão brancas. (E são originalmente beges.) E ainda assim, não importa o quanto eu tente me distrair, nada é capaz de atenuar o meu temor de que algo pode dar terrivelmente errado.
Na superfície, as coisas parecem estar calmas. Um forasteiro andando pelas ruas não teria a impressão de que uma eleição presidencial está prestes a acontecer. Olhando pela janela, percebo que as bandeiras do Brasil — que acabaram por representar um apoio a Bolsonaro — foram retiradas das fachadas dos vizinhos. Um sinal ambíguo: pode ter sido uma reação preventiva à derrota ou a calmaria antes da tempestade. Não há muita conversa entre amigos e familiares sobre as eleições; as linhas foram demarcadas em 2018 e não se moveram muito desde então.
E a despeito de toda a polarização social, ainda há um enorme apoio à democracia por aqui: 75% dos cidadãos acham que ela é melhor do que qualquer outra forma de governo. Desde o início, Lula tentou explorar esse sentimento comum e abrir uma frente ampla contra Bolsonaro. Ele escolheu um antigo adversário da centro-direita, Geraldo Alckmin, como seu vice-presidente; cortejou assiduamente empresários; e assegurou o apoio de centristasproeminentes. Nessa atmosfera amistosa, apoiadores do candidato de centro-esquerda Ciro Gomes, que tem atualmente cerca de 6% nas pesquisas, podem até dar seus votos para o ex-presidente. Se isso ocorrer, Bolsonaro certamente será derrotado.
Essa gloriosa perspectiva faz pouco para dissipar a ansiedade que envolve o país. É fisicamente impossível não se deter no que pode acontecer. As possibilidades são aterrorizantes: as pesquisas podem estar erradas e Bolsonaro pode vencer. As pesquisas podem estar certas e Bolsonaro pode recusar-se a conceder a derrota, e até mesmo iniciar um golpe. Cada dia agora parece ter a duração de um dia em Vênus — em torno de 5.832 horas — a julgar pela agitação no meu feed do Twitter.
Há simplesmente muita coisa em jogo. De um lado, há o processo democrático em si, que tem sido posto à prova por Bolsonaro. De outro, há o futuro do nosso Judiciário. Só no próximo ano, teremos duas cadeiras vagas no Supremo Tribunal Federal, de um total de onze. Se estiver no poder, Bolsonaro certamente aproveitará a chance para escolher ministros da linha-dura conservadora, como fez com suas duas últimas indicações. Uma remodelagem do Judiciário à moda de Trump pode estar a caminho.
E há o meio ambiente. Até o momento, este ano, mais incêndios florestais foram registrados na Amazônia brasileira do que em todo o ano de 2021, que já tinha sido catastrófico. Desde o início de setembro, nuvens densas de fumaça cobriram inúmeros estados brasileiros. Sob a administração de Bolsonaro, o desmatamento cresceu, as agências regulatórias foram desmanteladas e as mortes de indígenas aumentaram. Reverter essas desastrosas políticas ambientais não poderia ser mais urgente.
Além disso, um novo governo poderia enfrentar o terrível destino das 33 milhões de pessoas vivendo em um estado de fome e insegurança alimentar — isso para não mencionar os 62,9 milhões de pessoas (ou 29% da população) que se encontram abaixo da linha da pobreza. Também poderia reduzir a quantidade de armas de fogo em circulação, que, sob os auspícios de Bolsonaro, atingiu a cifra perturbadora de 1,9 milhão. Por último, os brasileiros talvez comecem a se recuperar do trauma de 685 mil mortes por Covid-19.
Mas, antes de tudo isso, há um necessário primeiro passo: conduzir Jair Bolsonaro à aposentadoria. Então nós poderemos começar a respirar de novo.
Uma versão deste artigo apareceu na versão impressa do New York Times de Oct. 1, 2022, Section A, Page 23 com a manchete: “We Brazilians Are Holding Our Breath”. Trad. da autora.
I COULD BEGIN by making a list of all the things I’ve lost: a green blouse with a lizard brooch, during a train ride. A fancy, travel-size tube of mint-flavored toothpaste, after an intercontinental flight. A boyfriend, in 1982. A sock. An aspirin tablet. Contact lenses. My house keys—but they were inside a tote bag, something I only discovered after changing all the locks.
Thirty-odd years come and gone and I still can’t remember where I heard the phrase “I don’t want to die in Cordeirópolis,” which for some reason is scribbled in the margins of a French notebook. In my handwriting. Something else I’ve never been able to verify was a story someone told me about a couple who, as an experiment, hid the word “apple” from their son until he was 6 years old.
I’ve lost my cat a few times too. Adoniran used to climb inside drawers, closets, empty boxes, and once he hid in the attic for an entire week. One night, however, he slipped out the open door and disappeared. I must have been around 11. My parents assured me that cats know their way home and they always come back, but I waited several weeks and nothing. Some school friends—I don’t know if they were just making it up to comfort me—told me incredible stories about cats who’d returned home years after they disappeared, with battle scars and one eye missing, stories that had happened to their friend’s cousin’s neighbor, but Adoniran did not follow this pattern. Months passed. I gained a little brother, a chubby brown-haired baby who spent all day nursing. I found a dried-out contact lens under a kitchen chair, but no sign of Adoniran.
And then one day he came back. It was late summer when my father opened the front door carrying a black cat with green eyes, an angry ball of fur that looked at us with haughty contempt. My father said he’d found him in the garden digging up daisies. My mother was right behind him, cracking her knuckles like she did when she was nervous. I was so happy I didn’t even notice that he no longer had the tuft of white fur on his belly, or that his ears were not as pointy. Adoniran immediately took up residence in a corner of the living room and began sharpening his nails on my mother’s slippers, oblivious to my euphoria.
After that day, even if, deep down, I knew that cat wasn’t Adoniran—and my parents were counting on me not to notice the difference—I continued to call him by that name and was always spotting traits of his old personality lurking in this other animal: the way he sat in the fern planter, the meow of protestation he gave whenever a scrap of food wasn’t to his liking, his obsession with staring into nothing. Cats know their way home and always come back, said my parents. I didn’t want to lose Adoniran.
Every cat who came after had the same name.
**
WHEN MY HUSBAND CAME HOME, I was standing in the middle of the living room with a spoon in my hand. Apparently I’d left the kitchen and was going to the bedroom, but along the way started thinking about three-banded armadillos and my whole reason for getting the spoon was seemingly sucked down the drain, vanishing in a matter of seconds and leaving in its place a blank spot, empty and frightening as a room with no furniture.
In the beginning it was like this: I’d be telling a story and all of a sudden lose my train of thought. I’d take the lead in a meeting to make some point I deemed important, then no longer remember why I was saying it or what I’d intended to say next. I started writing things down to keep them from slipping away, and soon began jotting down even the most trivial matters to prevent them getting lost by the wayside. If I had to go to the laundry room to get a screwdriver, odds were good that, en route, I’d get distracted by a dirty dish left in the living room and change course to go wash it and, on my way to the kitchen, hit my pinky toe at the corner of the table and remember I needed to trim my nails, but in the middle of all this be startled by a car alarm in the street. And then I’d find myself in the bathroom holding a dirty dish, with no idea what I’d gone in there to do. So when a task arose that demanded more than three seconds to complete—or required moving between rooms—I would find pen and paper and write: “screwdriver.” I’d tuck this piece of paper into my front pocket and add to it throughout the day, so that on any given morning the list might look like this: “wash face,” “don’t go out without wedding ring,” “empty bathroom trash,” “refill water filter,” “take umbrella,” “put on eyeliner.”
But that was just the beginning. On that day my husband simply took the spoon from my hand and started talking as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, like you do with children when they threaten to burst into tears and you have to quickly distract them with a crayon or a head of cabbage. Apparently he didn’t want to make a big deal of it, or perhaps he had been through something similar. Maybe it wasn’t the first time he’d found me standing in the middle of the room holding a spoon. My episodes of forgetfulness were becoming constant. It was like thinking of something—for example, the object we use to remove an egg from a frying pan, or the actor who played Spiderman—and simply being unable to name it. I could sense the information was there, somewhere in my mind, but didn’t know how to go about reaching it. I would open a door and find other things stored inside, like the name of that Portuguese aunt who wore flowery dresses (Cremilda) and my old phone number, or I’d keep thinking about electric mixers and can openers. I’d close my eyes, hold my breath and try to physically retrieve the word from within a tangle of other memories, but it was no use. The only way out was to give up and ask someone, at the risk of seeming very strange (“you know, that thing with the little holes? With a handle like this?”). Only then would I be able to retrieve that blessed slotted spoon.
Before long, everybody knew something was wrong with my memory. Still, at first, things would come back to me. I sensed that that bit of information existed; I knew it was “on the tip of my tongue” and triggering one detail was enough to ignite the rest. But the erosion happens at a rapid pace, and later on, this too would go. That feeling of unease at being in a room with no furniture ceased to be a presence and was transformed into an absence, and it was only through others that I noticed large gaps in my memory.
They were stuffed with something that looked like snow.
**
SINCE I HAVE NO IDEA what I was planning to write next, I’ve decided that, before my understanding of words dries up completely, I will embark on putting into writing a single incident—one I hope will be the last to disappear, and about which I still have a few scattered memories. Enough to get me through until the last piece of me melts away.
They are the memories of the last winter with my brother.
**
I DON’T REMEMBER NOW if it was in Switzerland or in France, only that it happened in the mid-’70s. For Christmas, I got a beautiful orange sweater, or maybe it was blue, and a pair of warm, cozy boots. My childhood dream was to see the snow. So off we went—me, my parents and my little brother—to a cottage we rented for the season, which probably means my family was very rich, or my father was a corrupt military officer, or that I was an international fashion model.
I still remember the feeling of watching snow fall for the first time. At first, it looked like dandruff from heaven, or a bunch of small white feathers someone had strewn from a building. It was like we were on a different planet. I felt like someone riding in a glass elevator: the more the snow fell, the faster it felt the elevator was rising. Snow covered the mountains, the trees, the roof of the cottage, the stairs, blanketing everything in white batting. When I close my eyes, I can still feel my feet stepping in it, the smell of clean air, the biting cold that pierced through my innermost layers of clothing.
That winter, soon to turn 19, I saw snow for the first time. I also tried to learn to ski, which was a disaster. My brother, always good at sports, picked it up almost immediately and could zip down the mountain by himself—skis bigger than him, goggles perched on his forehead, with the confident look of someone who’s only 9. “Just lean back like this,” and off he went, gliding smoothly along in front of me, while I simply stood there, afraid to shift from my spot and fall again. I tried my best, taking a deep breath each time, but would always be overcome by panic and fall. After a few days, I finally gave up, content to sit by the lake reading a detective novel or watching my brother, who was now teaching the other children and even racing ahead of several adults.
I don’t remember if anyone else came on the trip with us; maybe some uncles and cousins, or neighbors, or my father’s coworkers. I do know that one of my most memorable (pardon the expression) experiences was a picnic by a tree that still had its leaves, where I drank a mug of frothy hot chocolate with people whose identity escapes me. (On second thought, maybe those were my parents.) The rest has been lost. I don’t remember, for example, whether that was before or after our trip to the cabin. Random things cling to my memory: a pile of burlap sacks, a sticky tap, or my brother with a frightened look on his face. I remember falling, hitting my head, and having to spend a few days in bed recovering. But I’m only sure of that because I still have the scar.
One weekend my parents decided to spend a few days away in the city and left me alone at the cottage, in charge of my brother. We hadn’t spent time together in a while. I was already away at college and no longer had much contact with him, and suddenly I realized that I didn’t know him very well—or was that just a feeling I had now, fifty years later, as his image gradually fades from my mind and I could no longer tell you if he was right- or left-handed.
I suggested we hike to an abandoned cabin that sat on the other side of the ski resort, up the mountain, through the trees. “We can build an igloo once we get there,” I said, wanting to convince my brother to ditch his skis for a day and spend the afternoon with me.
We jumped the barricade that marked the edge of the ski resort and hiked up the trail into the forest, walking slowly as I told a scary story—only I was lousy at it and he just giggled. I remember the wind picked up, it wouldn’t be long before the snow began to fall. I hesitated, but my brother begged for us to keep going. By my calculations, we were almost at the cabin. “We’re going to find a bunch of bodies up there for sure,” my brother said, as if trying to cheer me up. According to him, the place was used by evil spirits that attracted poor lost skiers. “The kids at the ski resort told me,” he explained, “they said nobody’s ever come back from there.”
(Left-handed, definitely left-handed.)
I don’t really remember if the snow on the trail was high or if we saw any squirrels along the way, but I can’t forget the little boy chattering away excitedly, almost breathless: “You’ll see, we’ll open the door and stacks of severed heads with bulging eyes will come rolling out, and a half-alive skeleton will grab you by the feet.” Dark clouds filled the sky and I picked up the pace. I pulled two of those woolen hats, whose name escapes me, from my backpack, as well as gloves and scarves. “No one can get out of there because when you slam the door it starts an avalanche, and the people get stuck in there and starve to death,” the boy said. I was amused and wondered what kind of school he’d been attending, or what kind of books his mother let him read.
In the distance, we saw a pile of stones and a shovel planted in the snow, which the boy asked if we could take with us, “to bury the bodies.” “No, we can’t bury anyone because we’ll need to eat their brains,” I replied in all seriousness, and he grew more excited. “There will be some little coffee spoons there, those teeny tiny ones, and we’ll take turns eating juicy brains,” I added. “And then,” he continued, “we’ll turn into zombies, and we’ll live in our igloo and hunt squirrels.” We left the slotted spoon standing in the snow and continued climbing.
He buried some marbles at the foot of a tree, saying they were presents for the next travelers who passed through, after the snow melted.
That’s what I remember about that day: our conversation on the way to the cabin as clouds gathered overhead and the wind spread a snowy sheet over us, growing whiter by the minute. After we reached the top, we took a moment to admire the structure and began building our igloo. Inside the cabin, to our surprise—I don’t remember what was in there, and if I were to remember now that would certainly be a surprise. I feel like we’d taken some cucumber sandwiches. I took off my boots and left them at the door. Adoniran dropped his backpack and went to scout out the bedrooms. Maybe a storm came; maybe we had to spend a few days there, living off sandwiches. Or maybe that was from some movie I saw. I don’t know if the cabin was really abandoned, nor do I remember what happened after that. As hard as I try to shut my eyes and retrieve those memories, all I can see are bare walls, glassless windows, vague shapes buried under the snow.
And an orchid—I remember an orchid. It would seem that inside that abandoned cabin in the ice, a few kilometers from the ski resort, was a vase with a single orchid that had somehow survived the winter. I stood watching that miracle, and was about to say something poetic when Adoniran came running in and plucked the orchid from its stem, saying he wanted to take it to give to his mother as a gift. He beamed from ear to ear. That’s all there is for me to tell. And it’s all I have left.
I couldn’t say how we got back, or even if we ever did get back from there. That was my last winter with him—not that anything happened that day, or maybe something did happen, but because it is the last winter left in my memory. Bit by bit everything is fading away. Just like cats, we don’t always find our way back home. I encounter people who may have already died, I forget whether I’m married, I scream at the nurses and don’t know why. The person I was in the past now no longer exists. The people I’ve loved are gone. All I have left are feelings in the present: a mouthful of chocolate cake, the sun burning my skin, a beautiful song that takes me back to absolutely nothing. I don’t even know anymore if I’ll die without ever seeing the snow.
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — “I’m letting the scoundrels know,” President Jair Bolsonaro told supporters last year, “I’ll never be imprisoned!”
He was shouting. But then, Mr. Bolsonaro tends to become animated when talking about the prospect of prison. “By God above,” he declared to an audience of businesspeople in May, “I’ll never be arrested.” As he spends “more than half” of his time dealing with lawsuits, he surely feels well armed against arrest. But there’s desperation in his defiance. The fate of the former Bolivian President Jeanine Áñez, who was recently sentenced to prison for allegedly orchestrating a coup, hangs heavy in the air.
For Mr. Bolsonaro, it’s a cautionary tale. Ahead of presidential elections in October, which he’s on course to lose, Mr. Bolsonaro is plainly worried he too may be arrested for, as he put it with uncharacteristic understatement, “antidemocratic actions.” That fear explains his energetic attempts to discredit the election before it happens — such as, for example, gathering dozens of foreign diplomats to fulminate against the country’s electronic voting system.
Yet however absurd the behavior — and forcing ambassadors to sit through a crazed 47-minute diatribe is certainly on the wacky end of the spectrum — the underlying motive makes perfect sense. Because the truth is that Mr. Bolsonaro has plenty of reasons to fear prison. In fact, it’s getting hard to keep track of all the charges against the president and his government.
To start with, there’s the small matter of a Supreme Court investigation into Mr. Bolsonaro’s allies for participating in a kind of “digital militia” that floods social media with disinformation and coordinates smear campaigns against political opponents. In a related inquiry, Mr. Bolsonaro himself is being investigated for, in the words of a Federal Police report, his “direct and relevant role” in promoting disinformation.
Yet Mr. Bolsonaro’s wrongdoing is hardly confined to the digital world. Corruption scandals have defined his tenure, and the rot starts at home. Two of his sons, who also hold public offices, have been accused by state prosecutors of systematically stealing public funds by pocketing part of the salaries of close associates and ghost employees on their payrolls. Similar accusations, concerning his period as a lawmaker, have been directed at the president himself. In March, he was charged with administrative improbity for keeping a ghost employee as his congressional aide for 15 years. (The supposed aide was actually an açaí seller.)
Charges of corruption also surround high-ranking members of the government. In June, Brazil’s former education minister, Milton Ribeiro, was arrested on charges of influence peddling. Mr. Bolsonaro, who is mentioned by name by Mr. Ribeiro in compromising audio clips, was steadfast in his defense of the minister. “I would put my face in the fire for Milton,” the president said before the arrest, later explaining that he would only put his hand in the fire. He maintains, against all available evidence, there is no “endemic corruption” in his government.
Then there’s the damning report by the special Senate committee on Brazil’s Covid-19 response, which describes how the president actively helped to spread the coronavirus and can be held responsible for many of Brazil’s 679,000 deaths. It recommends that Mr. Bolsonaro be charged with nine crimes, including misuse of public funds, violation of social rights and crimes against humanity.
How does the president respond to this swirling charge sheet? With secrecy orders. These injunctions, concealing evidence for a century, have been applied to all manner of “sensitive” information: the detailed expenses of Mr. Bolsonaro’s corporate credit card; the army’s disciplinary process that acquitted a general and former health minister for having participated in a pro-Bolsonaro demonstration; and fiscal reports from the corruption investigation targeting his eldest son. This is a far cry from the man who, early in his tenure, bragged of bringing “transparency above all else!”
If secrecy doesn’t work, there’s obstruction. Mr. Bolsonaro has frequently been accused of trying to obtain privileged information from investigations, or to stymie them altogether. In the most notorious instance, the president was accused by his own former minister of justice of interfering with the independence of the Federal Police. It’s a credible charge. After all, in a leaked recording of a ministerial meeting two years ago, Mr. Bolsonaro was caught saying that he wasn’t going to “wait to see my family or my friends get screwed” when he could just as well replace law enforcement officials.
To exercise that power, though, he needs to keep his job. With that in mind, Mr. Bolsonaro has been handing out top government jobs and using a pot of funds, called a “secret budget” for its lack of transparency, to guarantee the support of centrist lawmakers. Given the strength of calls for impeachment — as of December 2021, over 130 requests had been filed against him — a bank of support is crucial. The strategy is no secret: Mr. Bolsonaro confessed to doing both in order to “placate Congress.” He denies that the budget is secret, despite the fact that those who request funds from it remain anonymous.
But the bigger challenge is winning over the electorate. There, again, Mr. Bolsonaro is resorting to tricks and workarounds. In July, Congress passed a constitutional amendment — nicknamed the “kamikaze bill” by the minister of the economy — that grants the government the right to spend an extra $7.6 billion on welfare payments and other benefits until Dec. 31. If it sounds like a shameless attempt to gin up support across the country, that’s because it is.
Whether it will help the president’s cause, who knows. But the signal it sends is unmistakable: Mr. Bolsonaro is desperate to avoid defeat. And he has every reason to be.
A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 9, 2022, Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Bolsonaro Has Many Good Reasons to Fear That Prison Is in His Future.
SÃO PAULO, Brasil — “Quero dizer aos canalhas,” o presidente Jair Bolsonaro falou a apoiadores no ano passado, “que eu nunca serei preso!”
Ele estava gritando. É que Bolsonaro tende a ficar exaltado quando fala sobre a perspectiva de detenção. “Por Deus que está no céu, eu nunca serei preso,” ele declarou a uma plateia de empresários em maio. Como ele passa “mais da metade” do seu tempo lidando com processos, certamente se sente bem preparado para essa possibilidade. Mas há desespero em sua fala. O destino da ex-presidente boliviana Jeanine Añez, que foi recentemente condenada à prisão sob a alegação de orquestrar um golpe, paira pesadamente no ar.
Para Bolsonaro, o caso serve de alerta. A poucos meses das eleições presidenciais em outubro, que ele se encaminha para perder, Bolsonaro está claramente preocupado em também ser preso por exercer “atos antidemocráticos,” como ele mesmo diz, usando um eufemismo pouco característico. Esse temor explica suas tentativas enérgicas de desacreditar a eleição antes mesmo que ela ocorra — por exemplo, quando ele decide reunir dezenas de diplomatas estrangeiros para enxovalhar o sistema eletrônico de votação do nosso país.
E ainda assim, por mais que esse comportamento seja absurdo — e forçar os embaixadores a presenciar uma diatribe de 47 minutos certamente está na ponta bizarra do espectro — a justificativa por trás disso faz perfeito sentido. Pois a verdade é que Bolsonaro tem motivos suficientes para temer a prisão. De fato, está cada vez mais difícil acompanhar todas as acusações contra o presidente e seu governo.
Para começar, temos a mísera questão de que vários aliados de Bolsonaro estão sendo investigados no Supremo Tribunal Federal por participar de uma espécie de “milícia digital” que inunda as redes sociais com desinformação e coordena campanhas de difamação contra seus oponentes políticos. Em um inquérito relacionado, o próprio Bolsonaro está sendo investigado por sua “atuação direta e relevante” em promover a desinformação, nas palavras de um relatório da Polícia Federal.
Os delitos de Bolsonaro, porém, não se limitam à esfera digital. Escândalos de corrupção definiram sua administração, sendo que o estrago começa em casa. Dois de seus filhos, que também detêm cargos públicos, foram acusados por procuradores estaduais de Justiça pelo roubo sistemático de verbas públicas ao embolsar parte dos salários de aliados e de funcionários-fantasmas que constavam de suas folhas de pagamento. Acusações similares foram feitas ao próprio presidente, em relação a seu período como deputado federal. Em março, ele foi indiciado por improbidade administrativa por manter uma funcionária-fantasma como sua secretária parlamentar por 15 anos. (A suposta assessora era, na verdade, uma vendedora de açaí.)
Acusações de corrupção também rodeiam membros de alto escalão do governo. Em junho, o ex-ministro da educação Milton Ribeiro foi preso sob a suspeita de tráfico de influência. Bolsonaro, que é citado nominalmente por Ribeiro em áudios comprometedores, foi firme em sua defesa do ex-ministro. “Eu boto minha cara no fogo pelo Milton,” disse o presidente antes da prisão, explicando mais tarde que apenas colocaria a mão no fogo. Ele sustenta, contra todas as evidências disponíveis, que não há “corrupção endêmica” em seu governo.
E também há o incriminador relatório final da Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito sobre a resposta do governo à Covid-19, que descreve como o presidente ajudou ativamente a disseminar o vírus e pode ser responsabilizado por muitas das 679 mil mortes pela doença no Brasil. O relatório recomenda que Bolsonaro seja indiciado por nove crimes, incluindo emprego irregular de verbas públicas, violação de direitos sociais e crimes contra a humanidade.
Como o presidente responde a essa vertiginosa folha de acusações? Com ordens de sigilo. Esses decretos, que ocultam evidências por um século, foram aplicados a todo tipo de informação “sensível”: as despesas detalhadas do cartão corporativo de Bolsonaro, o processo disciplinar do Exército que inocentou um general e ex-ministro da Saúde por ter participado de uma manifestação pró-Bolsonaro, e relatórios fiscais da investigação de corrupção sobre seu filho mais velho. Um tremendo contraste com aquele homem que, no início de sua gestão, gabou-se de que iria promover “transparência acima de tudo!”.
Se o sigilo não funciona, temos a obstrução. Bolsonaro tem sido frequentemente acusado de tentar obter informações privilegiadas das investigações, ou mesmo de obstruí-las por completo. No caso mais notório, o presidente foi acusado por seu próprio ex-ministro da Justiça de interferir com a independência da Polícia Federal. É uma acusação bem convincente. Afinal, em uma gravação vazada de um encontro ministerial de dois anos atrás, Bolsonaro foi pego dizendo que não iria esperar prejudicarem “a minha família toda,” ou amigos, quando ele podia muito bem substituir os agentes de segurança.
Para exercitar esse poder, contudo, ele precisa se manter no cargo. Com isso em mente, Bolsonaro tem distribuído cargos de comando no governo e usado um conjunto de verbas, apelidado de “orçamento secreto” por sua falta de transparência, a fim de garantir o apoio de congressistas de centro. Considerando a força dos pedidos de impeachment contra ele — em dezembro de 2021, mais de 130 pedidos haviam sido protocolados — um banco de apoio é crucial. A estratégia não é um segredo: Bolsonaro confessou que fazia ambas as coisas para “acalmar o Parlamento.” Ele nega que o orçamento seja secreto, apesar de os relatores dos pedidos das verbas permanecerem anônimos.
Mas o maior desafio é ganhar o eleitorado. E aqui, mais uma vez, Bolsonaro recorre a truques e gambiarras. Em julho, o Congresso aprovou uma emenda constitucional — apelidada de “PEC Kamikaze” pelo ministro da Economia — que dá ao governo o direito de gastar mais de 7,6 bilhões de dólares (41 bilhões de reais) extras em auxílios sociais e outros benefícios até 31 de dezembro. Se parece uma tentativa descarada de incitar o apoio da população, é porque é mesmo.
Se isso vai ajudar o presidente, ninguém sabe. Mas o sinal enviado é inconfundível: Bolsonaro está desesperado para evitar a derrota. E tem todos os motivos para isso.
Uma versão deste artigo apareceu na versão impressa do New York Times de Aug. 9, 2022, Section A, Page 22 com a manchete: “Bolsonaro Has Many Good Reasons to Fear That Prison Is in His Future”. Trad. da autora.
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — When Elon Musk reached a deal to acquire Twitter, right-wing Telegram groups in Brazil went wild. Here at last was a muscular champion of free speech. Even more, here was someone who — users rushed to confirm — wanted Carlos Bolsonaro, son of the president, to be Twitter’s managing director in Brazil.
That was, of course, not true. But I wasn’t surprised. I had been following these groups on the messaging app for weeks, to watch how misinformation was spread in real time. In Brazil, fake news is something that the population at large seems to fall victim to — Telegram just offers the sort of deepest rabbit hole you can go down. So I knew — from horrible, eye-sapping experience — that for many right-wing activists, fake news has become an article of faith, a weapon of war, the surest way of muddling the public discussion.
“Fake news is part of our lives,” President Jair Bolsonaro said last year, while receiving a communication award from his own Ministry of Communications. (It doesn’t get more Orwellian, does it?) “The internet is a success,” he went on. “We don’t need to regulate it. Let the people feel free.”
You can see his point. After all, fake news produced a headline supposedly in The Washington Post that read, “Bolsonaro is the best Brazilian president of all times” —and claimed that a recent pro-Bolsonaro motorcade rally made the Guinness World Records. But my plunge into the country’s Telegram groups revealed something more sinister than doctored articles. Unregulated, extreme and unhinged, these groups serve to slander the president’s enemies and conduct a shadow propaganda operation. No wonder Mr. Bolsonaro is so keen to maintain a free-for-all atmosphere.
The chief target is Mr. Bolsonaro’s main opponent in October’s elections, the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In medium-size pro-Bolsonaro groups, such as “The Patriots” (11,782 subscribers) and “Bolsonaro 2022 support group” (25,737 subscribers), the focus is unrelenting. Users exhaustively shared a digitally altered picture of a shirtless Mr. da Silva holding hands with President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela as if they had been a homosexual couple in the 1980s. (Do I need to say it’s false?)
The claims are endless, and outlandish: Mr. da Silva is sponsored by drug traffickers; he will persecute churches; he is against middle-class Brazilians having more than one television at home. People use what they can get. An obviously satirical video — which shows an actor, in the guise of a lawyer for Mr. da Silva’s Workers’ Party, confessing to electoral fraud — is paraded as cold hard proof. The name of the lawyer, which translates as something like “I Mock Them,” should have given the game away. But in their rush to demonize, Mr. Bolsonaro’s followers aren’t exactly given to close reading.
Underlying this frenetic activity is barely disguised desperation. Mr. da Silva leads Mr. Bolsonaro in the latest poll, 41 percent to 36 percent. The reality of Mr. da Silva’s popularity is clearly too painful to bear, so Telegram users take refuge in fantasy. “Finally a real poll,” one user said, asserting that an imaginary pollster put Mr. Bolsonaro in first place with 65 percent of voting intentions, against 16 percent for his opponent. When inventing polls won’t do, you can always call off the race. “Afraid of an international arrest, Lula is going to give up his candidacy,” another claimed. The wishfulness is almost touching.
Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters have another great boogeyman: the Supreme Court, which has opened several investigations of the president, his sons and his allies. On Telegram, this scrutiny has not been well received. People accuse the justices of publicly defending rape, pedophilia, homicide, drug trafficking and organ trafficking. They share a manipulated picture of one justice posing with Fidel Castro. They share an edited video in which another justice confesses that the Workers’ Party is blackmailing him for participating in an orgy in Cuba. (The justice did say that — but was actually giving a bizarre example of fake news against him, a rumor that Mr. Bolsonaro himself helped to create on Twitter.)
A few steps have been taken to curb this deluge of fake news. Some social media platforms have been removing videos from the president that spread misinformation about Covid-19 and the country’s electronic voting system. WhatsApp decided not to introduce in Brazil a new tool called Communities, which gathers several groups’ chats, until the presidential election is over. In March, the Supreme Court banned Telegram for two days because the company had been ignoring the court’s request to remove a misleading post on the country’s electoral system from the president’s official account (1.34 million subscribers). The company then agreed to adopt a few anti-misinformation measures, including a daily manual monitoring of the 100 most popular channels in Brazil and a future partnership with fact-checking organizations. A flawed “fake news bill” is being considered by Congress.
It’s not nearly enough. A federal police investigation recently identified an orchestrated scheme — the so-called cabinet of hate — formed by Mr. Bolsonaro’s closest allies, and probably also his sons and aides. The group’s alleged aim is to identify targets such as politicians, scientists, activists and journalists, and then to create and spread disinformation for “ideological, party-political and financial gains.” (They all deny the accusations.) The problem is much bigger than a few scattered posts by lunatics.
In the end, we don’t know what can be done to effectively contain enormous misinformation campaigns on social media platforms, especially before important national elections. How can we reason with people who believe that “leftists allow babies to be killed 28 days after being born” or that “vaccines implant parasites that can be controlled with electromagnetic impulses”? Some specialists advocate adding fact-check labels, making it harder to forward messages or bringing in user verification. None, I’d guess, would do much to hold back the tide of madness I found on Telegram.
There is one solution we can fall back on, at least: voting the fake-news politicians out of office.
A version of this article appears in print on May 5, 2022, Section A, Page 26 of the New York edition with the headline: Madness on Telegram in Brazil.
SÃO PAULO, Brasil — Quando Elon Musk fechou um acordo para comprar o Twitter, os grupos brasileiros de direita no Telegram foram à loucura. Ali estava, enfim, um poderoso defensor da liberdade de expressão. Mais que isso, ali estava alguém que – como os usuários se apressaram a confirmar – queria Carlos Bolsonaro, filho do presidente da República, como presidente do Twitter no Brasil.
É claro que isso não era verdade. Mas não fiquei nem um pouco surpresa. Tenho seguido esses grupos no aplicativo de mensagens há semanas, a fim de entender como a desinformação é disseminada em tempo real. No Brasil, as fake news parecem ser algo que atinge a população em geral – o Telegram apenas oferece um tipo de buraco de coelho dos mais profundos onde se pode cair. De modo que eu sabia – a partir de uma experiência horrível e capaz de derreter as retinas – que, para muitos ativistas de direita, as fake news se tornaram um artigo de fé, uma arma de guerra, a forma mais certeira de turvar o debate público.
“Fake news faz parte da nossa vida”, disse o presidente Jair Bolsonaro no ano passado, ao receber um prêmio de comunicações oferecido por seu próprio Ministério das Comunicações. (Não dá pra ser mais orwelliano do que isso, certo?) “A internet é um sucesso”, ele prosseguiu. “Não precisamos de regular isso aí. Deixemos o povo à vontade.”
Dá para entender a lógica. Afinal, as fake news produziram uma suposta manchete do The Washington Post que dizia: “Bolsonaro é o melhor presidente de todos os tempos” – e alegaram que uma recente motociata em apoio ao presidente entrou para o Guinness World Records. Contudo, meu mergulho nos grupos de Telegram do país revelou algo mais sinistro do que notícias adulteradas. Desregulados, extremos e delirantes, esses grupos servem para difamar os inimigos do presidente e conduzir uma operação oculta de propaganda. Não é de admirar que Bolsonaro esteja tão ávido para manter uma atmosfera de vale-tudo.
O grande alvo é o principal adversário de Bolsonaro nas eleições de outubro, o ex-presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Em grupos bolsonaristas de tamanho médio, como “Os Patriotas Br” (11.782 membros) e “Bolsonaro 2022 – Grupo de Apoio!” (25.737 membros), o foco é implacável. Usuários disseminaram à exaustão uma foto digitalmente alterada de um Lula sem camisa de mãos dadas com o presidente da Venezuela Nicolás Maduro, como se eles tivessem sido um casal homossexual nos anos 1980. (Preciso dizer que é falsa?)
As alegações são infindáveis e excêntricas: Lula é patrocinado pelo narcotráfico; ele irá perseguir Igrejas; ele é contra as pessoas de classe média terem mais de uma televisão em casa. As pessoas usam tudo o que podem. Um vídeo obviamente satírico – que mostra um ator como se fosse um dos advogados do Partido dos Trabalhadores, confessando praticar fraude eleitoral – é ostentado como prova absoluta e irrefutável. O nome do advogado, “Avacalho Ellhys”, ou seja, “eu avacalho eles”, deveria ter sido suficiente para entregar o jogo. Mas em seu afã de demonização, os seguidores de Bolsonaro não são exatamente dados a uma leitura atenta.
Por trás dessa atividade frenética está um desespero mal disfarçado. Segundo a pesquisa eleitoral mais recente, Lula está em primeiro lugar com 41% das intenções de voto, contra 36% de Bolsonaro. A realidade da popularidade de Lula é claramente muito dolorosa de se suportar, de modo que os usuários de Telegram buscam refúgio na fantasia. “Até que enfim uma pesquisa de verdade”, disse um usuário, alegando que um instituto imaginário de pesquisa colocou Bolsonaro em primeiro lugar com 65% das intenções de voto, contra 16% de seu adversário. Quando inventar pesquisas não é suficiente, sempre se pode suspender a corrida. “Com medo de prisão internacional, Lula vai desistir da disputa”, alegou outro. O anseio é quase tocante.
Os apoiadores de Bolsonaro têm outro bicho-papão: o Supremo Tribunal Federal, que abriu inúmeras investigações contra o presidente, seus filhos e aliados. No Telegram, esse escrutínio não foi bem recebido. As pessoas acusam os ministros do STF de defender publicamente o estupro, a pedofilia, o homicídio, o narcotráfico e o tráfico de órgãos. Eles disseminam uma foto manipulada de um ministro posando ao lado de Fidel Castro. Eles espalham um vídeo editado no qual outro ministro confessa estar sofrendo chantagem do PT por participar de uma orgia em Cuba. (O ministro realmente disse isso – mas ele estava dando um exemplo bizarro de fake news contra ele, um rumor que o próprio Bolsonaro ajudou a criar no Twitter.)
Uns poucos passos foram tomados para conter esse dilúvio de fake news. Algumas plataformas de mídia social removeram vídeos do presidente que propagavam desinformação sobre a Covid-19 e o sistema de urnas eletrônicas. O WhatsApp decidiu não lançar no Brasil uma nova ferramenta chamada Comunidades, que agrega vários grupos menores, até o fim das eleições presidenciais. Em março, o STF baniu o Telegram por dois dias porque a empresa estava ignorando as ordens da Corte de remover um post enganoso sobre o sistema eleitoral brasileiro publicado na conta oficial do presidente (1.34 milhão de membros). A empresa então concordou em adotar algumas medidas contra a desinformação, incluindo o monitoramento diário manual dos 100 canais mais populares do Brasil e uma parceria futura com organizações de checagem. Um problemáticoprojeto de lei contra as fake news está sendo considerado pelo Congresso.
Não é nem de longe o suficiente. Uma recente investigação da Polícia Federal identificou um sistema orquestrado – o chamado “gabinete do ódio” – formado por aliados próximos a Bolsonaro, e provavelmente também seus filhos e assessores. O objetivo do grupo é supostamente identificar alvos como políticos, cientistas, ativistas e jornalistas, e então criar e propagar desinformação para “ganhos ideológicos, político-partidários e financeiros”. (Todos eles negam as acusações.) O problema é muito maior do que alguns poucos e dispersos posts de lunáticos.
No fim das contas, não sabemos o que pode ser feito para conter de forma efetiva as campanhas massivas de desinformação nas plataformas de mídia social, sobretudo às vésperas de importantes eleições nacionais. Como é possível argumentar com pessoas que acreditam que “os esquerdistas permitem que bebês sejam mortos 28 dias após o nascimento” ou que “a vacina possui parasita que pode ser controlado por impulsos eletromagnéticos”? Alguns especialistas defendem incluir rótulos de checagem, tornar mais difícil o compartilhamento de mensagens ou implementar a verificação dos usuários. Nenhuma dessas medidas, acredito, seria suficiente para refrear a maré de insanidade que encontrei no Telegram.
Pelo menos há uma solução à qual sempre podemos recorrer: votar para demover do cargo os políticos que defendem as fake news.
Uma versão deste artigo apareceu no dia 5/5/2022, Section A, Page 26 do New York Times impresso com a manchete: “Madness on Telegram in Brazil”. Tradução da autora.
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — “I’m an army captain,” Jair Bolsonaro said in 2017. “My specialty is killing.”
He has been true to his word. In just over three years in office, Mr. Bolsonaro has overseen an administration notable for its disregard for human life. There are, most immediately, the country’s 660,000 deaths from Covid-19 — the second most in the world, after the United States. Throughout the pandemic, he obstructed social distancing, sabotaged mask wearing and undermined vaccination. He maintains that he “didn’t make a single mistake during the pandemic.” So we have to assume it all went according to plan.
Then there are the guns. A series of presidential decrees loosening gun controls have opened the floodgates. Last year the federal police issued 204,300 new gun licenses, a 300 percent increase from 2018. Permits granted by the army to hunters and collectors rose 340 percent. The country, which recorded the most homicides in the world in 2021, is awash with firearms.
And then there’s the planet. Deforestation in the Amazon has reached its highest rate in 15 years, thanks in no small part to the president’s eager dismantling and defunding of environmental enforcement agencies. Not content with his efforts so far, Mr. Bolsonaro is now attempting to push through five bills that will strip away Indigenous rights, open up the Amazon to rampant profiteering and bring untold damage to the planet.
With international attention on the war in Ukraine and six months before an election he’s on course to lose, Mr. Bolsonaro is in a rush to use his power. And he seems intent on bringing death and devastation to the world.
It’s hard to choose the worst of the suite of bills, which activists call the Destruction Package. But let’s start with the one that seeks to overrule the land claims of Indigenous groups. By setting a date — Oct. 5, 1988, the day of the Brazilian Constitution’s promulgation — through which Indigenous people needed to physically occupy their land, the bill permanently dispossesses those who had already been expelled from their ancestral homes. Experts say that some 70,000 Indigenous people, nearly 8 percent of the Indigenous population, might be affected.
Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Another bill aims to open up Indigenous lands to mining. Audaciously, Mr. Bolsonaro has claimed the war in Ukraine is a “good opportunity for us.” With the country’s access to Russian-supplied fertilizers disrupted, the argument goes, Brazil must accelerate efforts to become self-sufficient. But most of the country’s potassium — one of the main ingredients in fertilizers and which the country has large reserves of — is not under Indigenous lands. It is a characteristically lame excuse, the sort of thing we expect from a guy who visited Vladimir Putin a week before the invasion of Ukraine and then boasted of having prevented the war.
Mining in these areas, though formally prohibited by the Constitution, has been happening anyway. Illicit mining operations, mainly from rafts and dredges anchored in streams, hit a record high in 2020. The effects on Indigenous people are dire. In 2021, six out of 10 people in three Munduruku villages tested positive for unsafe levels of mercury in their bodies. Mercury is used in the gold extraction process and then released, contaminating waterways and fish. Fifteen percent of the children under the age of 9 showed neurological symptoms linked to mercury poisoning.
Gold miners, of which there are an estimated 20,000 working illegally in Yanomami lands, are a particular problem. Seemingly emboldened by the president, they have been intensifying attacks against local communities, setting houses on fire and threatening and killing Indigenous people with shotguns. In May, after miners opened fire with automatic weapons from speedboats, two Yanomami children panicked, fell into a river and drowned.
Decades ago, Mr. Bolsonaro lamented that the Brazilian cavalry hadn’t been as competent “as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians in the past.” No doubt these two bills — which would also legalize logging, industrial agriculture, oil exploration, hydroelectric dams and other projects on Indigenous lands without even having to ask for the consent of their inhabitants — are, to him, something of a legislative correction. They amount to a stunning and sustained assault on Indigenous life.
That would be bad enough. But the bills don’t stop there. A third aims to loosen environmental licensing requirements for a dozen economic activities, like mining and farming, and a fourth plans to give amnesty to land grabbers and illegal loggers in the Amazon. The last of the five bills aims to loosen regulations on pesticide use, something that Mr. Bolsonaro’s administration — which has registered 1,467 pesticides, many of them with highly hazardous ingredients — seems to be especially keen on.
Taken together, these bills will significantly accelerate the destruction of the Amazon. The world’s largest rainforest, already emitting more carbon dioxide than it can absorb, could reach a tipping point and turn into a savanna. That would unleash greenhouse gases in huge quantities, disrupt water cycles at a regional and perhaps global level and substantially curtail our ability to capture carbon emissions. Climate change would pick up at an even greater pace. It would be a disaster.
Even so, Mr. Bolsonaro will probably get his way. Though thousands of people have taken to the streets in a colorful display of dissent, there seems to be enough congressional support — underwritten by the powerful agribusiness lobby — to pass the bills. It is likely just a matter of time before they become law.
Yet in a way, Mr. Bolsonaro doesn’t even need the legislation on his side. In the field of death and destruction, after all, he already has outstanding results.
A version of this article appears in print on April 3, 2022, Section SR, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: “Bolsonaro Brings Destruction to the World.”
