Hello, my good friend! Happy Sunday! I started writing this post on Saturday, some days before the first turn of the general election. I wrote on the sense I did feel an air of optimism. But given it was not entirely justified, not yet, I decided to abstain from writing for the weekend, I really did not want to be blamed of calling a victory before due time and process. The due process is in motion, and I am very happy to say my optimism was justified, and I read the room quite well, which makes me happy, because what I saw was hope. I will keep most of the original post unchanged, making only some add-ons and corrections here and there. So, let us jump to it!
Good morning, kind friend, reader of this post on the Divagation Store! Well, how are you? How is the weather? Hope you are okay, and the temperature is fine? As for me, I am okay, a bit anxious, but what else is new... Tomorrow is a day of general election in Brazil, the country I reside in, and I trust it is an important one, I am sure I am not the only who agrees. We have a chance of ousting the left for the following years, and perhaps start a long process of recovery. Recovery from the almost 30 years of stagnation (only interrupted for a short while around 2017-2019), recovery from the immense cultural decline and societal collapse. It is a wrecked place, the past four years specially, in more ways than one, were not good. And the specter of imminent socialist consolidation has kept lurking and haunting me and many others. Just the fact there is an insecurity concerning what can even be said out loud is enough to reveal this. If the center-right wins, both presidency and other branches of elected official cabinets and parliament, still there is a huge way to go towards some normalcy.
There is an urgency in being emphatic in spreading good ideas, ideas of freedom, classical liberalism, Thatcherite conservatism. The left needs to be neutralized. Not in any violent way, never violence, away from me such horrible revanchism, specially because there is no position to be imposed in any direction. I mean culturally, and in tone, the left needs a stronger counterpoint.
And so, this is what I wrote. I am happy to say, on a large scale, in Brazil, the country I reside in, there has been a shift towards the right. It was not a small one, in fact, it was a landslide. Though the presidential position is still on ballout for the second turn, the victory of the right today is inmense and historical. Not a lukewarm right, even, but many that are positively thatcherite-leaning. The odds of the leftist president win on second round are quite slim, though I would not call the man out of the dispute yet, unfortunately. In meantime, the right has the upper hand, and could as well win the presidency as well, though the most important is being done culturally, and through self education, and a lingering hope that refuses to die, the one of seeing finally the country move towards actual freedom.
I can only say I am a part of this, albeit a miniscule. Today I went alone and walking across the grey neighborhood, only redeemed by the sky, cerulean as ever. I went there to vote towards the right, and center-right candidates. Many of course have undergone bigger challenges, but my own, I will not downplay. It was not a long walk, but was a difficult one, I am not used to walking much. When returnint home, I felt a vertigo, I almost faited in the sidewalk, but I still went there, and I voted for a chance to see at least a tiny bit of move towards economic freedom, deregulation, radical descentralization, school choice, homeschooling, and for just the desire to write what I want without feeling the police may knock on my door. I went there so I can just live my intellectual life without worrying the book I read may be banned for being too "right wing". It was not much for a person to do, but personally, it was a milestone, and I am happy to have done so.
I am happy that I did read the room as reasonably as I did. I haven't feel any pride in being brazilian in my life, but today. I have plenty of memento mori pins in my life, this is almost a deserved carpe diem. It is not a full victory, and this is but one single step in the long, hard, difficult road to some recovery in the country. I have my personal woes, the credit card bills that mount, the dissonance between my immediste family and I, a gap that increasingly becomes a canyon. I have plenty of lamentations, but I also know I am not in America, where there is more room of maneuver between government and individual. I am in Brazil, and as such, unfortunately, the branches of government still have a disproportionate say in my own life. So I did vote, and voted towards a country that allows for the room of maneuver Americans have. Long and hard way to get to half of it, but it is something, and it is beautiful.
This is what I wanted to say, for today. Welcome October! I will return with more thoughts and ideas soon, around this week, hopefully before next weekend. Thank you so much for being here, once again! I wish you the very best! And as I said, I should return real soon to this publication, so no worries! Cheers! Let us alloe a bit of joy, even if just for this hour.
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