Although the parallels are similar there is one big difference between US and Brazil political system: Dual-party system.
Trump bullied the republican party and purged anyone who is not loyal to him, and through his party he got a good chunk of the congress to be subservient to him.
Brazil has multiple parties and therefor Bolsonaro couldn't worm his way into having major legislative and judiciary power as well.
One big thing in Brazil is that the voting process is conducted in two phases: Phase 1 all candidates get votes, if no one got >50% of the votes then there is a Phase 2 where only the top 2 candidates can be voted on. So voting for a 3rd party on Phase 1 is not detrimental and the main parties need to make coalitions.
So it works a bit like you see in parliamentary systems, but once in power it is quite common for the coalitions to fade away or congress-people to vote against the coalition stalemating the legislative and reforms. It is also why there is so much corruption in Brazil's congress, vote-buying can be achieved on an individual-level instead of a party-level.
Also please don't praise the current Brazilian president, he is part of the problem and making the country politics even more like the US (increasing polarization through populist movements). He is just doing it from the left side of the political spectrum. He is just not insane wannabe-dictator like Bolsonaro.
The Trump playbook didn't work in Brazil because of the way the systems and institutions are set up. But these differences have both upsides and downsides.
> He is just not insane wannabe-dictator like Bolsonaro.
He's worse.
He openly plots the installation of socialism in this country, literally said he wanted to do it on national television. He suffered zero consequences.
The communist venezuelan dictator who Trump is on the verge of nuking? He rolled out the red carpet for him and pretty much gifted him billions of our taxpayer money. No doubt he's up to his nose in Iran's nuclear business as well.
It's not enough for him to covertly rob people of their hard earned money through his corrupt champagne socialist nonsense, he actually feels the need to minimize and normalize literal armed robbery as well. He's been filmed making shoddy excuses for literal violent crime. "I'm tired of seeing people die just because they stole a phone", he says. "It's just to make a little money and buy beer at the bar".
I'd take Bolsonaro over this guy any day. At least with Bolsonaro there's a chance for my country as a whole to prosper, if not me personally. Lula being president actually makes me want to turn to crime.
Imagine what it must feel like being a normal person living in a shithole ruled by organized crime. Imagine getting married and trying to raise a family, only to wake up one day and read on the news that 26% of your country's vast territory is dominated by violent drug trafficking borderline terrorist organized crime gangs so powerful they are essentially parallel governments. At this point it's possible they've even literally infiltrated the official government as well.
All because of crime abiding politicians like Lula and his communists.
> Then the insurrection failed, the ex-president faced a criminal investigation and prosecutors put him on trial for plotting a coup.
The Americans impeached this president once and nothing happened, and then also didn't they find him guilty of a ton of other crimes, and nothing happened?
Do Americans have optimism that Trump won't be their first dictator for life and will actually face consequences for his crimes? As for me I'm so confident that Trump is America's last president that I'm trying to find ways to put money on it.
I am sorry, but this article is a bag of lies. It is just buying and broadcasting the official story from human rights violator Justice Alexandre de Morais, who is persecuting opposition and making up trials as Moscow did in the great purges.
A big difference between Brazil and the USA is that until 1985, Brazil was a dictatorship. The kind that "disappears" and tortures journalists and political opponents.
So lots of people still alive today remember those days and understand the danger of politicians like Bolsonaro. People like the current president Lula, who was imprisoned during the dictatorship.
The USA on the other hand, has never had a dictatorship in living memory. It's even debatable whether pre-independence it was a dictatorship, and in any case it is so far removed from the present that it has no impact on everyday life.
Maybe for this reason there is a feeling of "it can't happen here". An exceptional ism that is not unwarranted given the incredible social and economic progress made.
But this attitude is perhaps the most dangerous one can have towards fascism.
It's a dictatorship today. Has been since at least 2019. The unelected supreme court is ruling the country.
> The kind that "disappears" and tortures journalists and political opponents.
Nothing's changed, that's still the case today. Plenty of journalists, opponents, judges dead in mysterious circumstances. Including the judge who mysteriously died and made room for Alexandre de Moraes, who the USA would go on to sanction via Magnitsky. Even Bolsonaro himself suffered an assassination attempt.
> People like the current president Lula, who was imprisoned during the dictatorship.
Yeah, because he's a socialist who openly schemes to install socialism in Brazil. You know, the exact thing the military dictatorship wanted to prevent.
He was also imprisoned during our democracy for record breaking corruption, before the supreme court threw out all the evidence and set him free to take out Bolsonaro.
> The USA on the other hand, has never had a dictatorship in living memory.
They've never had presidents that openly admit to plotting to install socialism in their country either. Good thing they have the CIA to get rid of such subversives. Socialism should be criminalized, just like nazism.
Make no mistake here, Brazil is just not in the same situation as the US because Bolsonaro couldn't manage to equip the Superior Court with a majority of loyalists.
Also Alexandre de Moraes is crossing the line of his role responsibility (and power) a lot to go after everyone in Bolsonaro's gang.
So it is not quite a democracy, is just that Bolsonaro has stronger enemies than Trump.
And this brings the question if to fight someone who does not care about the rules, you must become them and break the rules as well.
> Also Alexandre de Moraes is crossing the line of his role responsibility (and power) a lot to go after everyone in Bolsonaro's gang.
That's a serious understatement.
The supreme court has usurped the functions of the entire government. These unelected judge-kings regularly walk all over our elected representatives in the legislative and executive branches of the government with absolute impunity. They relativize the constitution, make up laws as they go along and generally rule the country however they see fit. They are so brazen as to raise taxes. The only people who can impeach them are politicians who can't afford to make enemies out of the guys with the power to judge them for corruption.
Watching some journalist preach about "democratic maturity" in the context of Brazil is just disgusting and reprehensible. Whatever people think of Trump, he's the only one who ever did a thing about this depressing situation so I'll forever thank him for it.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 41.7 ms ] threadhttps://x.com/mortony13/status/1960261642014339524?s=46&t=36...
Not to mention nobody in Brazilian politics is lily white and a mature democracy would not be lead by Lula.
Trump bullied the republican party and purged anyone who is not loyal to him, and through his party he got a good chunk of the congress to be subservient to him.
Brazil has multiple parties and therefor Bolsonaro couldn't worm his way into having major legislative and judiciary power as well.
One big thing in Brazil is that the voting process is conducted in two phases: Phase 1 all candidates get votes, if no one got >50% of the votes then there is a Phase 2 where only the top 2 candidates can be voted on. So voting for a 3rd party on Phase 1 is not detrimental and the main parties need to make coalitions.
So it works a bit like you see in parliamentary systems, but once in power it is quite common for the coalitions to fade away or congress-people to vote against the coalition stalemating the legislative and reforms. It is also why there is so much corruption in Brazil's congress, vote-buying can be achieved on an individual-level instead of a party-level.
Also please don't praise the current Brazilian president, he is part of the problem and making the country politics even more like the US (increasing polarization through populist movements). He is just doing it from the left side of the political spectrum. He is just not insane wannabe-dictator like Bolsonaro.
The Trump playbook didn't work in Brazil because of the way the systems and institutions are set up. But these differences have both upsides and downsides.
He's worse.
He openly plots the installation of socialism in this country, literally said he wanted to do it on national television. He suffered zero consequences.
The communist venezuelan dictator who Trump is on the verge of nuking? He rolled out the red carpet for him and pretty much gifted him billions of our taxpayer money. No doubt he's up to his nose in Iran's nuclear business as well.
It's not enough for him to covertly rob people of their hard earned money through his corrupt champagne socialist nonsense, he actually feels the need to minimize and normalize literal armed robbery as well. He's been filmed making shoddy excuses for literal violent crime. "I'm tired of seeing people die just because they stole a phone", he says. "It's just to make a little money and buy beer at the bar".
I'd take Bolsonaro over this guy any day. At least with Bolsonaro there's a chance for my country as a whole to prosper, if not me personally. Lula being president actually makes me want to turn to crime.
Imagine what it must feel like being a normal person living in a shithole ruled by organized crime. Imagine getting married and trying to raise a family, only to wake up one day and read on the news that 26% of your country's vast territory is dominated by violent drug trafficking borderline terrorist organized crime gangs so powerful they are essentially parallel governments. At this point it's possible they've even literally infiltrated the official government as well.
All because of crime abiding politicians like Lula and his communists.
The Americans impeached this president once and nothing happened, and then also didn't they find him guilty of a ton of other crimes, and nothing happened?
Do Americans have optimism that Trump won't be their first dictator for life and will actually face consequences for his crimes? As for me I'm so confident that Trump is America's last president that I'm trying to find ways to put money on it.
So lots of people still alive today remember those days and understand the danger of politicians like Bolsonaro. People like the current president Lula, who was imprisoned during the dictatorship.
The USA on the other hand, has never had a dictatorship in living memory. It's even debatable whether pre-independence it was a dictatorship, and in any case it is so far removed from the present that it has no impact on everyday life.
Maybe for this reason there is a feeling of "it can't happen here". An exceptional ism that is not unwarranted given the incredible social and economic progress made.
But this attitude is perhaps the most dangerous one can have towards fascism.
It's a dictatorship today. Has been since at least 2019. The unelected supreme court is ruling the country.
> The kind that "disappears" and tortures journalists and political opponents.
Nothing's changed, that's still the case today. Plenty of journalists, opponents, judges dead in mysterious circumstances. Including the judge who mysteriously died and made room for Alexandre de Moraes, who the USA would go on to sanction via Magnitsky. Even Bolsonaro himself suffered an assassination attempt.
> People like the current president Lula, who was imprisoned during the dictatorship.
Yeah, because he's a socialist who openly schemes to install socialism in Brazil. You know, the exact thing the military dictatorship wanted to prevent.
He was also imprisoned during our democracy for record breaking corruption, before the supreme court threw out all the evidence and set him free to take out Bolsonaro.
> The USA on the other hand, has never had a dictatorship in living memory.
They've never had presidents that openly admit to plotting to install socialism in their country either. Good thing they have the CIA to get rid of such subversives. Socialism should be criminalized, just like nazism.
Both countries do it:
a. trump trying to ban burning of american flags
b. brazil banning elon musk tweets
The difference is a. will not stand up in court and is protected free speech, while b. will never be overturned.
Also Alexandre de Moraes is crossing the line of his role responsibility (and power) a lot to go after everyone in Bolsonaro's gang.
So it is not quite a democracy, is just that Bolsonaro has stronger enemies than Trump.
And this brings the question if to fight someone who does not care about the rules, you must become them and break the rules as well.
That's a serious understatement.
The supreme court has usurped the functions of the entire government. These unelected judge-kings regularly walk all over our elected representatives in the legislative and executive branches of the government with absolute impunity. They relativize the constitution, make up laws as they go along and generally rule the country however they see fit. They are so brazen as to raise taxes. The only people who can impeach them are politicians who can't afford to make enemies out of the guys with the power to judge them for corruption.
Watching some journalist preach about "democratic maturity" in the context of Brazil is just disgusting and reprehensible. Whatever people think of Trump, he's the only one who ever did a thing about this depressing situation so I'll forever thank him for it.