In Brazil two anti-Communist fantasies were created: that the Brazilian Armed Forces are practically Communist, because they are Positivist, and that both Lula and FHC were in a fake antagonism because they wanted to impose Communism into Brazil.
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The floods in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul were serious enough to be in the news around the world. Inside Brazil, two diversionary narratives were spread by liberals and libertarians, from the Right and from the Left, in order to hide the catastrophic state of public infrastructure. Before we go to them, let us stress that there is a federal plan for natural disasters inactive ever since 2012 – a period which encompasses the presidencies of Dilma Rousseff (appointed by Lula), Michel Temer, Jair Bolsonaro and Lula’s third term. However, the incompetence is really evident at the state level. The most astonishing example is the promise, made by the state governor Eduardo Leite in the past, that he would tear down the ugly flood prevention wall in order to make a pretty zone which would be administered by private initiative. Eduardo Leite is the first openly gay man to govern the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and he is pro-market. For left and right wing liberals, it is all that should matter.
On the left side, the diversionary narrative is that we should blame “climate change” for everything – even though the flood prevention wall was built after the great flood of 1941. Since it is an overused talking point, I don’t think it is useful for us to analyze it. The true novelty was the intense campaign against the State promoted by the Right – a Right which I don’t even know if we can still call liberal, for it seems to have surpassed the threshold of anarchism.
Let us take a good look: it is normal to have a campaign against the government, no matter which is the government; it is normal to have a critique on the inefficiency of Brazilian State; it is normal to call for a minimalist State and ascribe its flaws to a “swelling”. What seems to me to be unprecedented is the discourse of the Brazilian State being in itself an evil which prevents solidarity betwixt people. It was normal to be a liberal in Brazil; it was not normal to demand the end of the State, much less in a catastrophe caused, partially, by lack of infrastructure.
So as no one can say that I am exaggerating, I quote an excerpt from the article “The jealous State and the spiritual war waged in Brazil”, by the anthropologist Flávio Gordon, for one of the most important right-wing media outlets in the country: “The tragedy of floods in southern country made something very clear: the Brazilian State is not just inefficient. It does not sin only for omission. It exhibits an active hatred against the efficiency and the good doings of individuals. In moral terms, the Brazilian State is not satisfied in being evil. It cherished a hate against the good men. The State is resentful against private charity, and seeks revenge against those who do good. It seems to be there something of a satanical pride – something from Lucifer’s envy against Our Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the reason why, for every citizen struggling to save the victims, as well as those who denounce the State’s obstacles against direct charity between the people, all that we can do is to pray for divine protection. May God guide and protect the righteous!”
If a columnist with academic background, in a traditional newspaper, is saying that the Brazilian State is literally devilish, the reader can only try to imagine what goes on WhatsApp and Telegram.
As it normally occurs, among a lot of lies there is a grain of truth. Indeed, the Brazilian State was not prepared to deal with such a catastrophe and sent the Army to do whatever it could. Indeed, solidarity was important to alleviate the effects. Indeed, a federal autarchy of traffic (the ANTT) fined trucks, which carried donations, for being overweight. These facts were enough for giving verisimilitude to the ideas that the Brazilian State hates whoever does charity, and that its bureaucrats hold donations, so that the State is devilish and, therefore, must end.
This false version of facts is a part of the hollow anti-Communism is promoted by NATO’s supporters. If, in Eastern Europe, the memory of Stalin’s iron hand nourishes an weird pro-capitalism Neo-Nazism against a non-existent Communism, in Brazil two anti-Communist fantasies were created: that the Brazilian Armed Forces are practically Communist, because they are Positivist, and that both Lula and FHC were in a fake antagonism because they wanted to impose Communism into Brazil. The major promoter of this double narrative was the propagandist Olavo de Carvalho, who died in 2022, but left as a legacy a legion of right-wing influencers in social media, and anti-Communists columnists in newspapers (such as the before mentioned Flávio Gordon). These people were not anarcho-capitalist; they used to defend economical liberalism and social conservatism. At the same time, they waged a campaign against the Brazilian Army – which they sometimes called evil Positivists, or bureaucrats who just wanted to suck the State’s teats without caring about the country.
Because the Army didn’t make a coup d’État in 2022 in order to prevent Lula to reach the presidency, the Olavists seem to have thought that not only the Army has no utility, but neither the State. And there comes their explicit anarcho-capitalism. Besides from Olavism, there were market fundamentalists and anarcho-capitalists in the Brazilian Right. Since the tragedy of Rio Grande do Sul, however, the block of capitalist Right is unison, granting that Brazilian State is at least dispensable (at most, literally devilish).
The other thing that called my attention was the evocation of World War II. At the Oeste Magazine, both in article and Youtube show, May 10, the political commentator Ana Paula Henkel quoted Churchill and compared the Rio Grande do Sul’s disaster to the Dunkirk evacuation, because in both cases civilians’ boats were used. Churchill is presented ad the only man who defeated Nazism. (While I write this article in its original Portuguese version, I take a look at the live Oeste show and see a commentator praising the construction of bridges by the arms of voluntary gauchos, with no State needed.) At the very same May 10, an Olavist influencer who went to Rio Grande do Sul was posting a movie scene of Churchill talking about the importance of fighting Hitler. It does not seem very likely that both have thought of Churchill in order to deal with floods – and Ana Paula Henkel, as far as I know, has no historical of Olavism; she is a retired volleyball player.
Since we are talking about influencers, this Olavist is not original in his decision to raise funds and going to South, and make charity with other people’s money under the spotlight of Instagram. The pivot of the trucks story was an influencer, Pablo Marçal, who has no intellectual or ideological pretensions (but wants to become mayor of São Paulo or president of Brazil). He is a life coach whose bizarre lessons and stories generate memes and jokes (for instance: according to him, one must scare a jaguar or a lion by making the face of a madman, and punch the face of a shark, instead of fleeing them). I the end of the day, the Right demanded that people do not believe in government nor media, in order to believe in a whimsical internet bullshitter. And there were people who believed him.
The reason is that his position, of a millionaire who makes things alone against the State, puts him alongside with Elon Musk (who donated satellites to Rio Grande do Sul). Both are the angry Atlas of Ayn Rand – that is nothing more than a Übermensch tired of paying taxes, according to John Gray (Cf. Seven Types of Atheism, 2018). Suddenly, the Right wants to convince the Brazilian people that our State is the Devil and that Pablo Marçal is the one who will save us from floods, by distributing punches on sharks’ faces and looking like a crazy to jaguars and lions. Depending on rightist propaganda, Lula will remain in power for a thousand years.
