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.
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.
