AND: Editorial – Trump’s election
We publish an unofficial translation of the last Editorial by A Nova Democracia.
The election of Donald Trump, almost four years after the January 6th invasion of the Capitol, is symptomatic for the degree of decomposition of “American democracy” – which, with the United States being the sole hegemonic superpower, reflects and condenses the general crisis of decomposition of the entire the old imperialist order, notably its much-vaunted “universal democracy”. When the most powerful sectors of Yankee imperialism allow a bigmouth, who has insulted them all, like Trump, to contest and win elections, it is really a sign of the exhaustion of the legitimacy of the political regime. The slow and continuous end of the old bourgeois democracy, that unburied corpse, from whose terminal days figures like Trump, Bolsonaro and many others emerge who swarm in the governments of the old world, paving the way to fascism. There is no doubt that they will have to be fought relentlessly; but, given that, what can we say about Luiz Inácio’s statement that Trump was elected “by the voice of the people” at the polls? No comments needed…
The fact is that, internally, Luiz Inácio knows well that Trump’s election will double the pressure on his government; there is no doubt that, in the next two years, the current government of Yankee imperialism will do everything to ensure that, in 2026, the right will prevail in the Palácio da Alvorada; but not just any right, but the Bolsonarist far right. Perhaps, Bolsonaro himself. Why not? Luiz Inácio’s effusive greetings to Trump will not be enough to receive mercy from him.
To give just one example, Trump has already guaranteed that he will put “maximum pressure” on the Venezuelan issue and that he has the support of Luiz Inácio for this – which, if such miserable cowardice occurs (his veto on Venezuela’s entry into the BRICS is a foreshadowing), tends to further diminish the popularity of the Brazilian leader, who had completely unmasked himself in his already demoralized anti-imperialist verbiage. If it does not do so, the application of the policy dictated by the IMF that opportunism follows, with one guise or another, and which is already in a permanent crisis, with the pressure and boycott of the Trump government will produce a leap in the crisis of the country’s bureaucratic capitalism. So this situation will be the terrain with plenty of advantages for the opposition to win the 2026 elections.
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Conversely, the leader of the Brazilian far right, Jair Bolsonaro, took advantage. In an interview with the press monopoly Folha de São Paulo, Bolsonaro called Trump’s election “a very important step”, said that he expects a “huge bench (of Bolsonarism) in the Senate” in 2026 and that “amnesty (itself) has a certain deadline to make certain decisions”. He concluded everything with the promise of “(Michel) Temer (MDB) as vice president”. Even before Trump’s victory, Bolsonaro had already been making plans for Brazil in 2026, containing a tactical union with the traditional right (largely grouped under the umbrella of Bolsonarism, and in conflict with the STF) and the advancement of projects such as the Amnesty PEC for coup plotters, which, if it successfully fulfills the objective of politically demoralizing Bolsonaro’s process, could free the former president from ineligibility, especially since, in 2026, the TSE will be in the hands of the STF minister appointed by Bolsonaro, Kassio Nunes Marques. There is no doubt that Bolsonaro’s optimism is justified, and there is also no doubt that this situation was produced with a great contribution from opportunism itself (Luiz Inácio & co.), cowed in the appeasement of the coup generals and submissive to the tutelage of the Armed Forces.
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On the other side of the world, the contender to be Hitler, Benjamin Netanyahu, is starting to get frustrated. Since the campaign, he had received the directive from Trump: “end the war” before the end of the year. Of course this is the political death of Netanyahu, who will resist; but Trump and the part of the establishment that follows him know are convinced of the need to concentrate on the Pacific, to suffocate China, in the dispute for hegemony in the region.
If Netanyahu, who seeks to use the war to prolong his time at the head of the Zionist regime, in coalition with the most extreme sector of Zionism (religious Zionism), may be displeased with Trump’s preference, the “traditional Zionism” sector, led by a large part of the senior leadership of the Zionist Army and sectors of Shin Bet intelligence, Trump will tend to use the new scenario to force Netanyahu to sign the ceasefire. The crisis opened in Israel on the eve of the results of the Yankee elections. The break of silence on a military investigation in Netanyahu’s office – which included a police raid against the Zionist prime minister’s office – and the dismissal of Yoav Gallant, the Army’s trusted man, by the prime minister, as a response to the offensive, are expressions of the ongoing reactionary struggle in the occupied territory.
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There is no other path left for the masses of the people in this scenario than to radicalize the struggle for their rights. At the national level itself, the tendency to show an improvement in the situation in institutional, electoral and parliamentary ways, through “reformism”, as timid as false, ends. The first two years of the PT’s coalition government with the traditional right that surrounds and controls it, already very bad, are nothing compared to the upcoming two. To survive in government – which is Luiz Inácio’s only goal – it will be necessary to move much further to the right. It will be very difficult for Luiz Inácio to make the masses fall into this game, which serves to keep it subordinated to the reactionary dispute. On the contrary, we can foresee a growing and more violent popular protest, because, in dark and crisis times like these, it is not only true that whoever fights more loses less, more than that, the successive defeats that this ultra-reactionary congress will impose on the people, as well as the inevitable fascist threat, will push the masses to struggle for their immediate interests in the trenches of the defense of the democratic freedoms.
