Brazilian Elections
- Thread starter Arruda
- Start date
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Interesting, I have so far understood your standpoint on the whole thing to be closer to that anti-alarmist vein in consequence (although coming from a different angle). Obviously incorrectly so.
It might have started with a Corey Robin twitter thread you posted some months ago, where he dismisses the "democracy's dying" topic in popular/academic writing as a fad, comparable to the post cold war "end of history". He's probably not wrong in his diagnosis of a certain herd mentality there (which was his main point). But it also seemed to be part of his general outlook on Trumpism, which I understand to be that it's actually a sign of a fundamental weakness of the US right, and therefore an episode without much of a future. If I haven't misunderstood him (which is possible), that's his peculiar version of a "back to normal" prediction.
Maybe I have read your posts too much in a certain way because of that. Maybe there's still something else.
(Slightly OT for this thread, disussing western countries)
From what I've read of him, that is exactly what he says.
I heard an interview of his from ~2008, Bush's end and Obama's rise. He predicted 2 things - the right will need to find a way to connect with working-class whites, and that in "a few election cycles", there will be left populism. 100% correct on both.
But. He missed one thing completely. Immigration and the politics around it.
I've been looking at polling data from several countries and I think the US and UK are best placed to beat back the right with a left-wing turn. In both places, with their FPTP systems, the (single) right-wing party isn't popular among the youth, and the (single) opposition "left" party is. Also, within these parties, it is the more populist figures like Bernie and Corbyn who have youth support, which corresponds to their support for redistributive economic policies and a fairly liberal line on social issues including immigration.
OTOH, while the AfD and Sweden Democrats are also rejected by young people, their votes are distributed among the Greens, Moderates/Liberals and Left (not the CDU/SDU and Social Democrats).
So I think he is right to be optimistic, about the US. But I think immigration is totally missing from his analysis and could mess all that up. We have seen that, at least among older people, it can cause massive radicalisation.
I think the right-wing wave outside the west is quite different. Judging from India ad Brazil, it is supported a lot by young people including educated people, and the new middle class*. There is no prospect of it suddenly ending.
*Erdogan's support is strongest in rural areas unlike Modi or apparently Bolsonaro. I know there was an economic boom under him, but I don't know how consistently he gets their votes.
Edit - June 19 2008 here is the interview I'm referring to.
Last edited:
My same thoughts. He is even worse than Trump, way worse. Pure evil.
Brazilian girl I work with said Bolsonaro winning means her paying for her family to move to Europe rather than her moving back to Brazil in her lifetime. Not hard to see why.
So Brazil get their own Duterte to drain that swamp.
Many Brazilians move to Portugal for obvious reasions and it was reported on the news here that the requests for residence ans citizenship have gone up dramatically, to the point we had to relocate personel to reinforce our embassy and consulates in Brazil, all in the few past months.
Good luck to people in Brazil.
The Left and Right in Brazil have been extremely corrupt.
The Left and Right in Brazil have been extremely corrupt.
Let the privatisations begin!
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Wish I could tell them to keep fighting and that it gets better but eh.. it doesn't, at least not quickly. Plus, looks like a country fecked no matter which direction it opts for.
In other words, people who don't have to live in Brazil, and certainly not in poverty in Brazil.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Sounds like their choices were split between fascism and communism.
It's like Hitler and Stalin going head to head in an election.
Where does this end? The rise of the far right is happening everywhere.
It's like Hitler and Stalin going head to head in an election.
Where does this end? The rise of the far right is happening everywhere.
In a very dark place I think. Have thought so for quite a while now.
Bolsonaro and Hitler is a far better comparison than Haddad and Stalin. Though Bolsonaro fits more into that special South American brand of far-right military authoritarianism, as opposed to straight up fascism or Nazism. But the left in Brazil are nothing like Bolsheviks.
Yeah this is all types of wrong.
But they're not your european social dems or the US democrats. They're less moderate, and have drummed up class and identity politics from the top of the political pile for 16 years now, all while engaging in massive corruption.
I'm not saying this makes Bolsonaro justifiable, but just to provide context so people don't think this was exactly some sort of european election where the xenophobe beat the mainstream social dem.
This is the impression I'm getting from those trying to explain and analyse why this has happened. Sounds like Brazil's been a mess for a while and the people see Bolsonaro as a way out of that mess. They're bordered by three of the largest cocaine producers in the world as well right?
His opinions on women and LGBT people are so wrong though.
You would have got a 1st for it if you did Development Studies mate, they wouldn't have been so predisposed to economic dogma ;-)
The problems of Brazil run very deep, and I'm the wrong person to provide any pathway to better days. I left the country 4 years ago, and actively struggle not to have to return (and I'm admittedly part of the upper class there, can live a life of comfort).
Bolsonaro is all kinds of bigot and stupid. But a largely irrelevant congressman from Rio de Janeiro (my state continues to bless the country with its scourge) doesn't rise to president without the utter decay of the mainstream politics. And that process has been accelerated in the past 16 years.
Hmm okay. Was watching CNN and they made it sound like they had a bit of progress under the last lot, things were getting better. Then the corruption scandal happened and the people voted for something else. Protest vote so to speak. Guess they put their spin on it?
There's some progress I think but the corruption is everywhere in their politics from what I've been hearing. Crime and murder rates are appalling and Bolsonaro seems to have a very tough stance on that (talks about it being fine for police to murder/torture criminals).
He sounds like a monster.
Economically things went well from about 2004 to 2011. PT still got re-elected in the 2014 elections, but 2014-2016 were really bad.
Cheers. Either way it's fecked.
The "tough on crime" part is where I think the left in Brazil at least have a significant "blind spot". The working class voter should be their core constituent, and largely is. But where they lose a significant chunk is that the working class is severely affected by violence, and doesn't really feel any sympathy towards the criminals that surround them. So a chunk of the working class votes conservative because they see crime as their #1 issue. (Another chunk votes conservative because they're evangelical).
That's the talk I've been hearing as well. The rampant crime and violence is what affects the everyday person whether rich middle class or poor. Yea he says horrible shit about homosexuals and whatnot, but that's insignificant to people who live in fear everyday of getting robbed or killed. I think that's what draws people to him. He says what most people feel and want to say in regards to crime and criminals. It was dangerous when i went over a decade ago, and i see it hasn't gotten any better.
Question re policing in brasil. Aren't extrajudicial police killings normal there? A lot of the "crazy police shooting" videos seen online are from Brazil, where they shoot suspects in commission of a crime, even if they're not directly hurting anyone. If that stuff is already legal, what will bolsonaro change when he's in power?
PT isn't a pure Communist Party even if there are Marxists there.
Yeah, and they're pretty vocal too. This brazilian girl I know went to vote with an Haddad shirt and was booed and called names by a lot of Bolsonaro fans there. Police had to intervene and tell them to calm down. She skipped work today, very depressed.
Not really, if you listen to PT candidates they are fairly moderate. The right managed to paint them as some sort of venezuela type socialists, but the last decades show that's not the case.
This was true in the first round too. I think either in the US (or maybe Portugal) someone with a red shirt was beaten up.
I know a lot of Brazilians here who support Bolsonaro. And they don't like when someone or the media say he is a fascist because we don't live there.
Well Brazil itself voted 55% to 45%, so the diaspora is only voting in-line with the rest of the country. Albeit the marging seems slightly higher towards Bolsonaro.
Also it's utterly insignificant. Brazilian diaspora is 3m people while Brazil is 210m. It's like 1.5% of the population and therefore has no effect in the outcome anyway
Last edited:
You don't have to live in the U.S. to deem Trump an idiot.
We're not that barbaric yet... its not legal. Just rarely ever gets prosecuted, and in the cases where its the police doing the killing all it means it that it'll be even less likely to get prosecuted.
55-45 is not at all the same as 75-25 or 65-35. They're only in line with the rest of the country in that they voted Bolsonaro, but the margins are much different.
Going to be interesting to follow this. Far-right governments in quite a few major countries now, wonder how they will get on.
They're not moderate. If anything, they're less moderate in their speech than in their actions, which is welcome. But as I said, this isn't UK Labour or something.