Jair Bolsonaro, Far-Right Populist, Elected President of Brazil

[octoberlib]

Last edited Sun Oct 28, 2018, 07:12 PM - Edit history (1)

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil on Sunday became the latest country to drift toward the far right, electing a strident populist as president in the nation’s most radical political change since democracy was restored more than 30 years ago.

The new president, Jair Bolsonaro, has exalted the country’s military dictatorship, advocated torture and threatened to destroy, jail or drive into exile his political opponents.

He won by tapping into a deep well of resentment at the status quo in Brazil — a country whiplashed by rising crime and two years of political and economic turmoil — and by presenting himself as the alternative.

“This is a really radical shift,” said Scott Mainwaring, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government who specializes in Brazil. “I can’t think of a more extremist leader in the history of democratic elections in Latin America who has been elected.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/world/americas/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-election.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimesworld

Link to tweet

Bolsonaro, new prez of Brazil:
-"I am in favor of a dictatorship”
- Called a female lawmaker a “slut”
- said "no father is ever proud of having a gay son”
- has called indigenous Brazilians “parasites”

[Tiggeroshii]

1. This is really, really bad

[octoberlib]

4. Really bad. He's a homophobe and attacks and killings of gays and women have skyrocketed.

He also wants to open up the entirety of the Amazon forest to development. He used the same drain the swamp rhetoric that Trump did and corruption will be 10 times as bad. Sigh.

[dhol82]

2. Why is the world tilting right?

I don’t get it. There is enough money floating around for everybody to be comfortable.
Is it just that the .01% controls everything?

[octoberlib]

7. Brazil has had a lot of corruption scandals among the Left Workers party and he did Trump's

drain the swamp schtick. He also used the fake news tactic on anybody criticizing him.

[dhol82]

18. That doesn't explain why the world seems to be tilting right

It’s not just Brazil. Most of Eastern Europe seems to be going the same way.
Why?

[Yavin4]

21. Tremendous economic, social, political, technological changes in the past 20 years.

Economies world wide have been disrupted by globalization and technological change. Makes populations fearful and nostalgic for the "good old days". Right wing populists appeal to that fear.

[oberliner]

3. It wasn't even close

He won by double digits.

[octoberlib]

5. The last numbers I saw were 55% - 46 but those were exit polls.

[oberliner]

6. That adds up to 101 percent

[octoberlib]

9. Sorry. These are the last numbers I saw

With 92% counted:
Bolsonaro 55.63%
Haddad 44.37%

[oberliner]

11. Yes, looks like an 11 point win

[SCantiGOP]

8. El Trumpo

Like Trump, he campaigned on aggressive use of their natural resources instead of regard for climate change or preservation.
The scary thing is he includes the Amazon, which will be game over for the environment if that is degraded.

[anarch]

13. I sometimes wonder if the wealthy interests of the world have done the math on ecocatastrophe

and just decided to burn through everything and make their profits as quickly as possible before the at-this-point inevitable collapse of society. That would actually make a sick sort of sense to me...if they know that billions of people are going to die, we're past the tipping point already, and there's nothing we can really do about it that will accomplish much of anything as far as stopping or even slowing down catastrophic climate change, I can see where it might seem the pragmatic perspective to just say "why not grab up whatever we can while we still can?"

I immediately wonder if the Russians meddled in this election too, but it sounds like this is a true "populist" victory. Ugh. We're all gonna die.

[SidDithers]

10. Wonder how Greenwald feels...

Somehow, this will be Obama's fault.

Sid

[Blue_Tires]

19. What *is* he saying on twitter anyway? (he has me blocked)

[Blue_Tires]

24. Well, we got our answer:

Link to tweet

[SidDithers]

25. He's such a knob...

Sid

[asiliveandbreathe]

12. Some readings do compare this Bolsonaro to Duterte of the Philippines...

Last edited Sun Oct 28, 2018, 08:36 PM - Edit history (1)

I shudder to think what will happen to Brazilian people...and the support provided by Bannon to this horrible regime...can only be seen as a terrible event...

Here is the article..re Brazil...

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brazil-election-jair-bolsonaro-fascist_us_5bd1f3ece4b0a8f17ef57eee

[octoberlib]

14. Bannon was one of his advisers

Link to tweet

It was a pleasure to meet STEVE BANNON,strategist in Donald Trump's presidential campaign.We had a great conversation and we share the same worldview.He said be an enthusiast of Bolsonaro's campaign and we are certainly in touch to join forces,especially against cultural marxism.

[asiliveandbreathe]

15. Ah yes, Eduardo...the son of a very mean person..with an asshole...

[Union Label]

16. The orange clown and Bolsonaro

should make quite the pair, they both support the same shit.

[GoCubsGo]

17. Horrendous.

He also wants to turn over the country's natural resources to the corporations. Sickening. Just sickening.

[moondust]

20. Ugh.

I'm not sure all voters fully understand that all "change" is not for the better; it can easily be for the worse, even much worse. Jumping out of an airplane hoping to land on a haystack is certainly throwing caution to the wind in hopes of a big "change" but good luck with that.

[roamer65]

22. This is not good.

Could be the end of democracy in Brazil.

Hopefully some harm comes to him.

[dalton99a]

23. +1

[spanone]

26. trump loves him....

Link to tweet

Had a very good conversation with the newly elected President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who won his race by a substantial margin. We agreed that Brazil and the United States will work closely together on Trade, Military and everything else! Excellent call, wished him congrats!