A Fascist Ruined My Pint

Fascists are miserable people, overflowing with anger and hatred, they always ruin things, even a sublimely chilled glass of beer on a steamingly hot day. Bar Gaudio is a wonderful art deco institution. Built in the 1940s with green and white curves it serves what many people consider to be the best draught lager on the Baixada Santista, the coastal range that flanks Sao Paulo. Friday night, and I stop for a quick half to stare at the ocean. As usual the place is busy and I quickly became embroiled in a conversation with three middle aged white men sitting at the table next to me. They quiz me about Scotland, the Royal Family, and whisky. It isn’t long before the subject changes to the political situation in Brazil. I comment negatively on the violent dictatorship of the nineteen sixties and seventies, a period of mass repression much admired by Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters. “What dictatorship? There was never any real dictatorship. What happened was necessary to rid the country of trade unionists and leftists who were destroying Brasil…” My beer discolours. In a nearby supermarket another middle-aged white man screams at the top of his voice that the shortage of milk and butter has been deliberately orchestrated by Trade Unionists and Communists to discredit President Bolsonaro. One brave young woman says he’s talking nonsense and is met with a torrent of violent abuse. I wish this wasn’t true as well.