Opinion: “Yo, el Supremo”: Does Brazil’s President Have a Persistent Delusional Disorder?

Opinion, by Michael Royster

Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo –In 1974, Paraguayan author Augusto Roa Bastos published a novel entitled “Yo, el Supremo” (in English “I, the Supreme”).  The book’s central character, a quasi-fictional 19^th century autocrat, refers to himself as “El Supremo”, and believes himself to be above all power and history: “I don’t write history. I make it. I can remake it as I please…”

Fast forward to present-day Brasília, where Jair Messias Bolsonaro’s bizarre actions and reactions permit us to question whether he also considers himself as “El Supremo”, making history as he pleases. As he himself put it recently, “I am the Constitution!”

Ruy Castro, a columnist for the Folha de S. Paulo, has posted a hypothetical scenario.

“Suppose that Jair Bolsonaro, frothing inside a straightjacket, is submitted to a psychiatric examination. The result could be Persistent Delusional Disorder, a syndrome that includes hallucinations, a sense of persecution and a disconnection from reality. The patient rejects taking medication, does not admit he’s sick, and says he does not need any help.”

Castro points out several Bolsonarist hallucinations, among which are the views: (1) that he could close Congress and the STF, declaring himself an all-powerful ruler (Yo, el Supremo?); and (2) that the obsequious band of followers, herding around him in anti-democratic rallies, actually represents the Brazilian people.

As for the persecution complex, Bolsonaro has long complained that he and his family are the victims of a plot, led by the mainstream media, including leaders across the political spectrum: an example is his rabid insistence that there was a cabal of plotters behind the assassination attempt on his life during the presidential campaign.

The disconnect with the real world is that Bolsonaro & Sons now seem to be some of the few remaining human beings on earth who can spy a Communist lurking around every corner and in every school classroom.

The (im)patient Bolsonaro, in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, rejects taking precautions, does not admit he’s been sick, and does not need help in prescribing medicines to cure the coronavirus.

Spoiler Alert. Ruy Castro ends his post by disclosing that the “hypothetical” delusional disorder diagnosis is not hypothetical at all—it is, in fact, precisely the clinical diagnosis of Adélio Bispo, the man who knifed Bolsonaro during the Presidential campaign.

That non compos mentis diagnosis was sufficient to ensure Mr. Bispo an extended stay in a lockdown facility.

Bolsonaro’s aberrant behavior, evidenced by his proclamation “I am the constitution!” and his reiterated rants about non-existent conspiracies, has caused some to wonder whether he, unlike Adélio Bispo, should be allowed to walk freely about in Brasília.