O NEOFACISM AS EMPTYING THE PHILOSOPHICAL-POLITICAL TRADITION OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY

Abstract

The article addresses the current challenge of neofascism to the political liberalism tradition. Constitutional governments, inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), created a form of collective post-national identity: the constitutional patriotism, according to the Habermasian appropriation of that concept. In Brazil, the 1988 Federal Constitution, and the institutions strengthened by it, values liberal democracy and encouraged the representation of politically minority forms of life. However, the 2016 Coup has weakened democratic institutions, which are still resisting, and has created an emptying of the common political culture established with constitutional patriotism. Such exhaustion gave rise to a conservative political movement promoted by a moral majority with neo-fascist and ultranationalist characteristics led by Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro Administration tensions liberal democracy in view of an exclusivity in the conception of good life of the moral majority in bellicose opposition to the participation of political minorities in the spheres of power.