An Essay of Historical and Political Analysis
Author: Marcelo Salamon
june 08, 2026.
bstract: This article analyzes the historical and political trajectory of Brazil since the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889, arguing that the nation is undergoing a chronic process of moral and intellectual disintegration. Through a critical lens, the text examines the reflections of different governmental periods, the role of institutions, the failure of the educational system, and the polarization between political projects that, under different guises, have contributed to the stagnation of Brazil’s civilizatory potential.
The history of a nation is not a mere chronological record; it is the preservation of its soul and its intellectual dignity. When observing contemporary Brazil, we do not glimpse the flourishing of the civilizatory project that was within our reach, but the rubble of a land subjected to a process of moral and educational disintegration. This crisis is not an episodic phenomenon, restricted to one administration; it is the result of a trajectory of decline initiated by the deposition of Dom Pedro II—a rupture perpetrated by the resentment of slave-owning oligarchies, indignant at the abolition of slavery and the intellectual progress that the Emperor promoted.
I. The Betrayal of the Nation’s Project: The Wasted Legacy The capital error of Brazil was the betrayal of the only statesman who understood that a country’s sovereignty resides in the culture of its people. Dom Pedro II did not merely govern; he built. By educating half of the Brazilian population, importing European universities, and financing, with his own resources, the training of young people abroad, the Emperor planted the seeds of a global power. Had that nation-building project, grounded in rigor and a long-term vision, been maintained, we would be a pillar of Western civilization today. Republican history, however, inverted this vector: it traded erudition for vulgarity and development for stagnation.
II. The Republic and Its Governments: Advances, Contradictions, and the Military Legacy After the rupture of 1889, Brazil went through decades of instability, alternating between governments that sometimes advanced and sometimes deepened the structural wounds of the nation. Among them, Getúlio Vargas stands out—a complex figure who knew, like few others, how to legislate in favor of the worker and build a framework of labor rights the country had never known. If, on one hand, he favored the productive classes with a social vision that was advanced for the time, on the other, he did not escape the criticism of having also privileged the wealthiest strata. However, a statesman who governs for all social classes does not deserve to be condemned for it—he deserves, rather, to be understood in his complexity. The balance, in perspective, was positive.
Then came Juscelino Kubitschek—a progressive government that dared to give Brazil a new face: modern, audacious, civilizatory. The construction of Brasília was not a whim; it was a declaration of intent by a country that believed in itself. JK was, however, a man cut short by a premature death, and many attribute his end to circumstances that transcend chance. Brazil lost more than a president in him—it lost a vector of modernity.
The military government that followed—dictatorial in its essence—is today the object of a reevaluation forced by reality. Faced with the disorder and institutional degradation that characterize contemporary Brazil, growing portions of the population have begun to see in that period an order that, at least, worked. I do not fully share this nostalgia, as the military regime remains in debt to the Brazilian people. It deposed the greatest leader this country has ever known—Dom Pedro II—without ever presenting a successor of his stature. Those who depose have an obligation to be better. And the Brazilian military government never was. It brought urbanization, some economic growth, and, finally, the democratic opening—a merit that cannot be denied.
Among its names, I highlight João Batista Figueiredo: a simple man, of simple life, who died simple. He was lucid, serious, and deeply critical of the state of Brazilian education. Figueiredo prophetically warned that granting universal suffrage at that moment would be disastrous, not because he was opposed to democracy itself—he was, after all, the architect of the democratic opening—but because he recognized that the Brazilian people had been denied the necessary education to exercise their electoral capacity with the required maturity. This was a candid admission of the failures of the educational system during the military years; he understood that without a foundation of knowledge, the political future would be perilous, and that what would follow would be far worse than the regime itself. Unfortunately, he did not fare well in the economic field, but his foresight regarding the nation’s cultural and intellectual fragility was unmatched. He recognized the problem, and few possessed that level of lucidity.
The capital sin of the military regime, however, was another: it lied. It distorted history, manipulated teaching, and deprived entire generations of the right to know their own country. In the seventies and eighties, no student received a real historical education—they received what the regime wanted them to know. This forced silence was a grave error, and the regime’s inability to acknowledge its own flaws cost Brazil a generation that could have been different.
III. The Destruction of Education and the Engineering of Cultural Chaos If the military regime sinned by omission and control, the left—with the PT at the helm—sinned by deliberate destruction. The education delivered by the Workers’ Party government figures, without exaggeration, as the worst this country has ever had. Their pedagogical model did not form reflective and questioning individuals, but rather insubordinate, resentful, and incapable of autonomous thought. We discovered, over time, that the project was exactly that. The resulting generation is troubled, not by chance, but by design.
Added to this was the infiltration of gender ideology into schools and universities, the woke movement imported and grafted onto an already fragile terrain, and the influence of LGBT agendas that, far from promoting dignity, contributed to the disintegration of the individual and the social fabric. As early as the 18th century, Marcel Proust warned of the process of homosexuality in France, observing that many who adhered to this model were not even homosexual—they followed, instead, a social convention of self-destruction, completely disconnected from their own reality. The parallel with contemporary Brazil is disturbing.
The result is in plain sight: university students who arrive at college as functional illiterates, a youth without solid moral references, and a public debate dominated by identity pathologies. The bad education of the military era was, at least, shielded against certain nocivities—evangelical benches, for example, had no space in that context. Today, the Brazilian public school is simultaneously a victim of neglect and a vehicle for indoctrination. The damage caused by the left in this field is incomparably greater. Whether this is due to the intrinsically destructive nature of the model or the influence of an equally sick global zeitgeist—or both—is a matter for each to evaluate. The fact, however, is undeniable: we have reached the point where we discuss not only functional illiteracy, but serious mental health problems as a mass phenomenon. That is the legacy.
IV. The Judiciary and the Pathology of Power The Supreme Federal Court is the mirror of our contradictions. Although it has played, in isolated moments, a role of counterweight against dictatorial inclinations—and I acknowledge that, as a whole, the Court upholds fundamental structures of the country against the national political misery—its performance is tarnished by decisions that defy legal logic. As a lawyer, I have witnessed the modus operandi of companies that, in collusion with instances of the Judiciary and parallel influences—including Masonic circles—instrumentalize the law to guarantee impunity and the systematic suppression of workers’ rights. This corruption is not a deviation of conduct; it is the system. The toga has often become a commodity at the service of private interests. This is not a condemnation of the institution itself—I highlight, inclusive, figures such as Justice Gilmar Mendes, in a way unfairly treated by public debate. The recent removal of one of the Justices, whose performance proved extremely harmful to the country, occurring under pressure from the American government, is, in my view, a welcome move—and I stand, like many Brazilians, in favor of an external intervention that rebalances what our internal institutions have not been capable of correcting.
V. The Gear of Destruction: PT and the False Morality The great problem of Brazil is the exhaustion of options. The PT, throughout its 16 years of government, acted as a wolf in wolf’s clothing: it destroyed education, corrupted the family, and undermined the national finances. The project was the transformation of Brazil into fertile ground for mediocrity.
However, the alternative that presents itself—the evangelical bench and its leaders—is, in practice, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Let us not be fooled: these are, in many proven cases, criminal organizations disguised as churches, involved with drug trafficking and a vast range of other crimes. Pastors who practice fraud in broad daylight, who take the worker’s money under the promise of indulgences and blessings; fortunes seized and returned only by judicial order; leaders who, in their personal companies, keep employees in conditions analogous to slavery. While the left destroys the country in a declared manner, these religious groups use faith as the perfect screen for their looting and for the manipulation of a people who, through ignorance, often struggle to remain shackled.
VI. The Driving Force and the Vacuum of Leadership Where is the solution? The right, which should be the counterpoint, is static, cowardly, or co-opted by these same nefarious elements. The military, historically, focused on maintaining appearances and class benefits, failing in their mission to build the nation. The external intervention, which many seek as a last frontier of hope, is the attestation that our internal institutions are bankrupt.
The only real driving force that remains in this country is the productive base: the entrepreneur of good character and the worker who, despite everything, sustains the nation with the sweat of their character. They are not all entrepreneurs—we know that many are complicit with corruption—but they are the only ones who still value intellect and real productivity.
Conclusion: The Despair of the Diagnosis We are in a desperate scenario. Who will hand Brazil to whom? There are no heroes on the horizon, for corruption is the oxygen of all spheres of power, from the heights of the Judiciary to the pulpits of the churches. The reconstruction of the nation demands the rescue of the intelligence that was subtracted from us in 1889. It is an arduous task, almost unbearable, but it is the only alternative in the face of the tyranny of ignorance and greed. The challenge is not only to change hands in government, but to purge the morbid morality that allows wolves—whether they are of the left or the religious “sheep”—to continue to devour the future of a nation that, by right, should be a power.
References:
BARMAN, Roderick J. Citizen Emperor: Pedro II and the Making of Brazil, 1825–1891. Stanford University Press, 1999.
PROUST, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time. (Reflective edition on society and customs). New York: Modern Library, 2003.
SCARANO, Julita. Devoção e Escravidão: A Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos no Distrito Diamantino no Século XVIII. São Paulo: Nacional, 1976. [Historical context regarding social structures and institutional formation in Brazil].
