The Brazilian Politics Thread

I notice a conspicuous lack of implication that they might vote for the guy again in the next election. Is that an indication that he's lost a lot of his initial popularity?

To make a long story short: In essence, it was a slow process that eroded our democracy to this point. Basically, somewhat like the US, there was a long period of Leftist governance that led the right to sell its soul to Satan and allow the far-right (i.e Bolsonaro) to gain a ever-increasing foothold in the Brazilian political scene.

The big thing, though, was that the country was hit by a massive recession somewhere along the mid 2010s, and the blame was of course laid at the feet of the leftist government (with some, if exaggerated, degree of truth) and so there was a widespread movement against Dilma Rouseff, which snowballed into a impeachment process on some very trumped up charges because the right saw in this a perfect opportunity to finally end the left's reign.

Concurrent to this, there was Operation Car Wash, the greatest corruption investigation in Brazilian history, which effectively led to a complete annihilation of most of the mainstream politicians of the nation under corruption charges. At the time, that investigation spun itself as a sort of beacon of justice in the deeply corrupt environment of Brazilian politics, but people always had strong suspicions it was, in fact, a politically orchestrated conspiracy to target the left (as it had curious predilection for leftist politicians above all else). Those suspicions were confirmed this year with a bold investigative series by Brazilian branch of The Intercept that showed leaked conversations between the head honchos of Car Wash that displayed that Operation Car Wash was, in fact, a politically-motivated conspiracy to target the Worker's Party (the leftist main party).

The coup de gráce of Car Wash was arresting former President Lula, probably the most popular politician in the history of the country and the strongest leftist politician in Brazil, on some very shaky evidence and trumped up charges. He'd have won last election with one hand tied behind his back, but with him in jail, nothing could have been done.

And standing tall among the political nuclear holocaust in the country was Jair Bolsonaro. The fact Operation Car Wash didn't target him propped him up as the last bastion of honesty in the political landscape (which has always been a bald-faced lie, something confirmed by the aforementioned leaked chats showing the Operation chiefs deliberately hid evidence from Bolsonaro's corruption).

In summary: Bolsonaro was put in charge by a massive financial crisis, two consecutive political conspiracies to muddy the waters and destroy the left's backbone in the country and a heaping of the media dining in both sideist narrative. It was the conclusion of more or less a decade of work by the right.

EDIT: Ninja'd by my main man Draghinazzo.

EDIT 2: It's possible. . He was elected effectively on blind hatred and a desire "to change things". He's been even more nakedly corrupt than the Worker's Party ever was and is basically running the country into the ground with less than six months in charge.

But honestly: never underestimate people's hatred. He might win again.

Edited by Gaon on Aug 22nd 2019 at 6:20:13 AM

Mind you, Collor was the winner of our first election post-redemocratization. Against Lula, the Workers' Party great leader (though it was more due to some Red Scare at the time IIRC).

Then Collor got impeached due to being a crook and weak in the Parliament.

Then, years later, he got elected as a Senator and keeps getting elected to this day. Yeah.

Let's not forget the reactionary portion of the population becoming increasingly nervous about all the blacks, gays and poor people having more rights and voice, bemoaning the "moral decay" of Brazil and the death of the "traditional family" and the "corruption of children" and all that other bullshit.

Brazilians are so immune to learning from past mistakes that there is legitimately a group that wants the country to go back to a military dictatorship. They tend to hang around in front of military buildings asking for the military to take power again, because "you didn't hear about all those bad things back then".

Brazil also suffers from a big problem of it's people being politically uneducated, having no idea how things work or why, and thus being easily manipulated, alongside what Muffins just brought up.

There has been a great amount of backlash from his own voter base against him in the few months of his presidency, and it's growing quite steadily, although by now it's too little too late. And those people will probably vote for somebody similar to him next time, as long as that person isn't directly tied to the man.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Aug 22nd 2019 at 10:28:01 AM

The best that can be hoped for with Bolsonaro's base is that enough of them will stay home that it will cost him re-election.

Emmanuel Macron says he will block EU trade deal with Brazil over Amazon forest fires

Being part of Mercosur is suffering. I feel bad for the other countries involved in it, they really didn't do anything to deserve it.

I love it that conservative leaders seem to pull the "neocolonialism" card only when they're screwing up. Not that they're paying actual attention to the peoples directly affected by this, mind you.

Edited by KusaMigeru on Aug 23rd 2019 at 10:24:04 AM

"It betrays a neocolonialist mindset" is rich coming from a politician elected off the back of ignoring indigenous Brazilians and driving them from their land in order to deforest the Amazon.

I mean, he's not wrong, and that's sort of the core of the modern far-right spin cycle, he's just twisting the truth to make it seem like he's not part of the social class that's actively performing imperialism.

Edited by math792d on Aug 23rd 2019 at 3:28:31 PM

That's the biggest problem, really: the whole "colonialist mindset" has a degree of truth to it, but the man has left the country with pretty much no grounds to stand on whatsoever.

I mean, let's call the imperialists out on trying to interfere with our affairs... While openly accepting aid from another imperialist for the elections and constantly pandering to them.

I know right? I mean, he not entirely wrong, the whole structure of a select group of mostly European countries and other economic powerhouses deciding things that effect less developed countries is shitty. But, as Math said, Bolsonaro doesn't get to make that argument considering how much he shits on indigenous people.

Colonialism mindset is not just Europe fucking over with other countries, it is also us, colonial descendants, still holding power over native people and land, as if we have a right to it.

And being imperialist ourselves. I think it is a common flaw of us Brazilians (and not just the right, unfortunately) to not recognize our own imperialism. We are not Europe and we are not the US, but still made an empire for ourselves and we still benefiting from it.

Edited by Heatth on Aug 23rd 2019 at 2:30:13 PM

Even if it does betray a colonialist mindset, any problem affecting the amazon this harshly is kind of everybody's problem, and Bolsonaro's response to the issue has made it clear that inviting him to a discussion on the matter wouldn't really help anything, so I can't fault the other countries on this one.

Well noted. Wars and other incidents aside (remember the problem with Evo wanting to nationalize a Petrobras subsidiary in Bolivia some years ago?), it's kinda common for us to keep our distance from our neighbors or even forgetting about them.

Taking my terrible joke as an example: I've seen some toku fans here calling Kamen Rider Amazon a legitimate Brazilian Rider before. Thing is, even though he ''has'' visited Brazil at one occasion, he lived with and got his powers from a tribe that is said to descend from the Inca. Whose empire, y'know, was located in what is Peru today. Even his actor in Kamen Rider Decade was a Japanese-Peruvian guy.

Seemingly silly example, but that crossed my mind immediately.

According to VP Mourão, the Amazon isn't the world's lungs... the oceans are.

You know, in case you thought only our president came up with inane bullshit.

Expect him to set the oceans on fire next, then.

"I mean, the oceans aren't the world's lungs either, that's the am—god damn it."

Again, that is and isn't completely BS. Amazon is not the main responsible for most of the planet's vegetal oxygen production and all - that would really be algae in the oceans.

The BS part, evidently, is that this is not the whole point at all: its biodiversity is also called into question. And again, don't call out on people and NGOs trying to seize your biological resources when you yourself would rather destroy them for cattle and soy than explore them. It's like burning millions of dollars while accusing people of wanting to steal them from you.

Edited by KusaMigeru on Aug 23rd 2019 at 3:09:31 PM

The whole neocolonialism is even more hilarious taking into acount that Maduro and chavez used the same rethoric all the time, but again, chavismo is pretty much regresive and conservative left(yeah, those exist), which is usually show in bad faith: it really means "the country is mind as as supreme leader I can do whatever the hell I want with it, shup up"

Is also hipocritc, guys like maduro and bolso want to atack other country of imperalist but expect everyone to be quiet about them, it show they dont understand global brotherhood at all.

It's also rather hilarious considering his boss well-known fanboyism over Trump.

Y'know, the current leader of the most imperialist country in the modern world.

And maduro is being close to russia, the second imperalist power in the world.

At time it seen latinoamerica dosent hate imperalist power but rather it envy them and want to do the same at times, is kinda hearthbreaking.

Heard that while Brazilian soldiers are deployed, he hated that the EU and other countries are making an issue out of the Amazon crisis.

Kinda rich since he doesn't the indigenous tribes.

Edited by Ominae on Aug 23rd 2019 at 9:46:21 AM

"At times". It's no secret that Latin America wants to be world power themselves, that's why so many of our economies are based in the goal of "Catching up" to the superpowers

To be fair to that VP, the oceans are actually the biggest source of oxygen. But that isn't the problem here, the problem are the wildfires and the fact that their smoke and greenhouse gas emissions are spreading to other countries. What gives Bolsonaro the right to pollute other countries' air?