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.
3 comments:
Brazil has repeatedly done business as a military dictatorship, including once within my lifetime: the last coup was in 1964, and democratic procedure wasn't fully restored (says Wikipedia) until 1989. There were several previous, and before that Brazil was a monarchy run by the former royal family of Portugal (who sailed away when they realized they couldn't stand up to Napoleon). As a republic, Brazil has more than its share of bananas.
Yeah--I wouldn't say the US-based anti-democracy forces are wholly to blame for this; more like there's a kind of symbiotic relationship that Bolsonaro and TrumpWorld have fostered. I find it hard to strike a balance when talking about other countries because I'm seeing things so much through the US-based prism. It also doesn't escape my attention that the US has fostered coups in Central and South America previously--but I feel like this is so a-historically open and with such an attitude that they don't care if the US goes a little bananas as well.
For health reasons I have to walk a bit each day so into the real world go the dog and I. No lie, often when I look up at a skittering cloud I try to catch the cameras filming this Truman Show.
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