Subfascist Right Rises in Brazil as Temer Government Assaults Media, Anarchists, and Social Movements to the Benefit of Multinationals

As right-wing authoritarians inch towards power in countries like Italy and Germany, Brazil, already in the clutches of a reactionary government dominated by American multinationals, may be at risk of seeing its democratic political system wiped out entirely, as an ex-general known for his admiration of military dictatorship prepares to seize the reigns of a state increasingly repressive of left-wing and anarchist movements.

Jair Bolsonaro, ahead in the polls by over 6%, ticks all the boxes of a totalitarian-in-waiting. He is violently misogynistic, making threats of rape in parliament to left-wing feminist politicians. He is homophobic, with his supporters taking to the streets last autumn to oppose queer theorist Judith Butler, branding her a “witch." And most disturbingly, he has suggested that the military should have murdered his political opponents when they were in power during the military dictatorship of the 60s and 70s, a regime so infamous that "Brazilianization" became a synonym across the world for right-wing extremism.

Bolsonaro also promises to eliminate “fraud,” and the “oligarchy,” which to him does not mean the foreign investors who own 20 out of 50 top banks in the country. Nor does it mean the rampant tax evasion of the rich that has transformed Brazil into arguably the most unequal country in the world. Instead, it designates an assault on the nation’s pension system.

The truly significant planks in Bolsonaro’s platform, however, are those that foreign, especially American, investors, hail: joining US-led trade agreements, opening up segments of the country to foreign cash, and, most ominously of all, privatising Petrobras, the country's national oil company, a step that even the military dictatorship flatly refused to consider.

The US State Department under former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson recently published a lavish guide to investors seeking to invest in Brazil. Reporting that the political situation in the country was “positive,” hailed Temer’s reforms "to increase labor market flexibility and to rationalize Brazil’s complex tax system”

Like many other right-wingers in Latin America over the past four years, Bolsonaro’s rise has been prepared and aided by an international fascist network bearing resemblance to Ben Shapiro's Turning Point USA organisation in the United States. Known as the "Atlas Network," this network has pushed hard-right capitalist propaganda and Israeli-style "anti-leftism" in nearly every major Latin American country, Brazil being a top target. Ecuadorian ex-president Rafael Correa has warned of an effort by the United States to destablise left-wing government in the region, which he described as a "New Plan Condor."

In 1979, Noam Chomsky coined the term “Subfascism” to describe Latin America under the rule of various military dictatorships in an alignment known as Operation Condor. He distinguished these regimes from traditional fascist states due to their subservience to multinational capital and ideological and political need for extreme levels of inequality. A Bolsonaro government would epitomise the return of and intensification of "subfascism" in the 21st century, signs of which are also beginning to appear in Italy, Greece, Turkey, and even the United States.

The current government of Brazil has done nothing to stop this. On the contrary, it has acted in concert with the United States to remove Lula De Silva, the centre-left leader of the Worker’s Party (PT) from the ballot entirely, to the benefit of Wall Street and multinational corporations. Lula is the only candidate to oppose Bolsonaro who has a wide support base, and was the only candidate with more than 30% in the polls before his indictment. Some 1/3 of Brazilians have considered submitting blank ballots in protest of his ban.

The current president, Michel Temer, is widely regarded by Brazilians as an illegitimate ruler with approval ratings in the single digits. He has made a wide verity of unpopular reforms, and is only president due to a dismantling of a PT administration undertaken at the behest of, funded by, multinationals.

His government has specialised in assaults on social movements and left-wing and anarchist activists, concerning civil society in the country and causing widespread outcry around the world.

According to CMI Brazil, the country’s Indymedia affiliate, the Temer government has acted to unlawfully invade the homes of social movement activists and imprison people of colour, acts which the anarchist website describes as “genocide.” It has also inserted a clause banning abortion entirely into the national constitution.

The Temer administration has also sought fit to alter the political environment in order to prevent a left-wing government from winning the 2018 election. In a series of Orwellian moves unprecedented in a 21st century democracy, it has utilised dictatorship-era laws to ban "fake news" supporting leftist candidates.

Administration officials have also met with Google  to ask the corporation to change their algorithms to "direct users’ queries to official content produced by the government." "It would work more or less like this: a rural worker who searches ‘pension reform’ would see content that explains that this category of worker won’t be affected by the current version of the bill," an article from O Globo explained.

Such a move would likely benefit right-wing candidates. Although Bolsonaro may not win the election (an assumption difficult to make with confidence following the recent Italian disaster), his rise, Temer's actions, and the role of the United States, should serve as a warning to left-wing and democratic individuals and movements everywhere.