Brazil

 There was certainly some telegraphy that something like this might occur, although it's a bit surprising that it's two years two days after the US's own attempted autogolpe and sometime after the Lula government has already been sworn in.  But now that a scene very familiar to us in the US has emerged in Brazil, it becomes apparent that some of our national figures share some blame. 

The very same ones who supported the attempted coup here. Like Steve Bannon and Matthew Tyrmand. But also Ali Alexander.  And Charlie Kirk has the big-headed, little-faced nerve to ask:

AHAHHAHAH!  Because Ray Epps also doesn't have anything to do with 1/6 other than being another Trump fan who ended up in situ, who got made the subject of an idiotic conspiracy theory that he was a mastermind and a Fed who caused the whole thing by just being some guy who was there, and yeah. It doesn't make sense, and the 1/6 committee has transcripts of his testimony for people who are into that kind of thing. 

I think there have been other people in and around Brazil recently who might be more interesting to look at. We can ask ourselves what Jair Bolsonaro's son was doing January of 2021 in the US--and possibly come up with the answer: taking notes. Obviously--I blame Bannon as an instigator within a worldwide push for more autocratic, fascist or fascist-leaning governments. 

Bolsonaro supporters attacking federal buildings in Brasilia. National Congress and the Planalto Palace, the seat of executive power, both broken into. Images of shattered windows and ransacked workspaces, all painfully reminiscent of Jan. 6. pic.twitter.com/esvFYE0HcC

— Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) January 8, 2023

There are differences between what happened in the US and what is happening now in Brazil. Lula is already inaugurated, and the buildings invaded by rioters were mostly empty. They are vandals, not people disrupting an actual significant event allied to the change of power. They are too late, and the response to them is swift. They are being arrested straightaway. 

But I want my readers cognizant that there is a global push towards more right-wing governments, and the US has recently been involved in this--see Venezuela.   (Really--take a look. It might make certain claims about the 2020 "stolen" election in the US make more and less sense.)

It's interesting of course, that Jair Bolsonaro himself is in Florida at the moment. I don't think this riot is supposed to be successful, just demonstrative of the destructive ability of rumor and political fuckery. It's a warning to take seriously. And I believe that the success of any crackdown will also be used as propaganda, just the way Trump is using "Ashli Babbitt" as a martyr figure in his re-telling of the disgraceful activity of 1/6. 

Fascism has a lot to do with grievance and the sense of persecution. I think one will see these themes in the follow-up to this. 

UPDATE: It doesn't escape notice that some of the signs are in English and have "We want the Source Code" and "#BrazilWasStolen" and "#BrazilianSpring"--this keeps alive the idea of some voting machine irregularity and is intended for an international (probably specifically a US) audience.

TrumpWorld Isn't About Democracy: UPDATED

 

Chaos Agent Steve Bannon on Bolsonaro’s loss: “He cannot concede. Screw Biden, screw the State Department, screw the CIA. F*ck em.” pic.twitter.com/1uHXZbxx9P

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) October 31, 2022

Here's Scruffy McBedbugSores announcing that he really feels like Bolsonaro needs to not concede a lawful election, because surprise of all surprises! He isn't a fan of elections that don't turn out the way he wants. So much like the 2020 elections in the US where he thought Trump should just declare victory.  Damn the consent of the governed--because one side will most assuredly be more aggressive. And he assumes it's the RW side. The macho guys. The fascists. And why does it even matter to Bannon, who doesn't live there? 

Because of a movement against democracy, and for authoritarians, where jumped-up know-it-alls who enjoy the smell of their own gas prevail.  Bannon has opinions about what a lot of countries should do. He's playing a game of Risk where other people are doing normal folk things like voting in their self-interest. Or trying to. And he thinks he knows better.

And Bannon has been off-gassing for a long while. He should be declared a superfund site and get cleaned up by professionals. I do not understand his appeal. I do understand why Brazil was a bit fed up with Bolsonaro--he rejects the law and science, and during Covid and the fires in the Amazon was like Nero. He was for himself. That is somehow not a good thing for most people. He was exhausting. 

Like Trump lost in 2020 because he blew off Covid and was exhausting. He wanted people to rake the forests to prevent wildfires and had weird ideas about windmills. Maybe flipperheaded fucknuts have no business in elected office. Just a thought.

UPDATE: It looks like Bolsonaro is doing something a bit more responsible to Brazil's future than Trump had done.  I know folks like Ali Alexander are going to be mad, and like, ok? I know I have a strong opinion about Meloni in Italy because part of my family lives there and my husband sometimes talks about us retiring there. What's Alexander's or Bannon's strong opinion about? It seems like a demonstration that elections are just bad and wrong. I get that people vote for wrong ones sometimes--(2016 in the US, anyone?) but that doesn't mean people having the choice itself is wrong. It's the disinfo, the fuckery, the threat of violence, that make the process bad when it goes bad. It's people letting their short term grievances over things like inflation and fuel prices or propaganda against immigrants foul up their ideas about the long-term consequences of bad, corrupt, or ideologically bent leaders. 

Democracy, at its best, is the corrective solution for getting the bastards out, even at the risk of occasionally letting some bastards in. This is why, warts and all, I think it is worth preserving. And why I think the TrumpWorld strongman model, which too often elevates people who pose as strong when they are intellectually low-wattage and would necessarily attract feeble, craven, toadying jerkwagons to their retinue is so dead wrong. 

UPDATE:  Ali Alexander spells it out--a stolen election is any one whose results he doesn't like:

"Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander really couldn't make it any more clear: "Any election I don't like is stolen. ... If I don't like it, it's stolen. If I like it, it's not stolen. If you win, it's stolen." pic.twitter.com/c7wH50PHzV

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) November 3, 2022

As if we did not know. 

 

 

Your Country is on Fire, You Knob

BREAKING: Brazilian President Bolsonaro says Brazil will only accept an offer of international aid to fight Amazon fires if French President Macron retracts some comments. Bolsonaro says Macron had called him a liar and questioned Brazil's sovereignty. https://t.co/OoYYf3mGqd

— The Associated Press (@AP) August 27, 2019

Putting aside all the "lungs of the earth" language about where 20% of our oxygen comes from, so help me, fire is not popular. Nor is Bolsonaro, really. The dude needs to get a grip.

UPDATE: And yes, this is far too serious for a grown man to make a petty chest thumping thing over.