@Jayhawker Soule and @Koldo may want to take a look at this thread.
So. Brazil. The place where I have lived for pretty much all of my life. One of apparently many that are at odds with themselves and express that conflict through their political system.
Currently, that dilemma is most evident in the expectations for the presidential election coming in 87 days. To put it bluntly, it is a choice between a grievous disaster and a far worse disaster. And we are very divided on which is which. It is quite a mess.
On the one side, we have Jair Messias Bolsonaro. I can't very well put into words just how fiercely I repudiate him in every way conceivable. He is an terrible, terrible human being and a much worse politician. I fully expect that he will be put in jail at some point, hopefully not too long after October 2nd 2022. The list of his crimes is long and perplexing; many of the worst are transparent expressions of a deeply immature and insecure, bravado-dependent, self-entitled personality that has not been challenged and educated at anywhere near the proper level. By himself he pushed us at least two thirds of the way towards full blown fascism. In a very embarrassing way, I hasten to add.
Then we have Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or simply "Lula". A person as notable for his common ground with Bolsonaro as for his contrasts. Having served two consecutive mandates as President, Lula is by no means a very extreme politician, but Bolsonaro's supporters make the claim anyway.
Both Lula and Bolsonaro are strongly disliked and also strongly supported. As usual for Brazilian politicians that are well-known, they have severe rejection rates. But both are also seen by their respective support bases as very difficult to do without, and the only realistic hope against a disaster scenario.
I won't talk much about Bolsonaro's supporters in this post. Quite frankly, there isn't a lot worth talking about there. They are deeply irrational, very authoritarian, very scared of facing reality. Worse of all, they have been increasingly reliant on levels of self-inflicted delusion in order to sustain their viability. At this point they are supporting misoginy, open corruption, threats of military force against the elections and the judiciary, invasion of native people's lands, homophoby and even worse. You get the drill. They are a sorry if sometimes too proud lot, rightfully fearful for their future and clinging with growing despair to lies and wild fantasies that they hope will be enough to ward their fears away.
Lula is much more run of the mill a person, much as there are also many people projecting unreasonably high hopes into him. He is a slightly left leaning speaker with, frankly, not a whole lot of content, and far higher levels of nationalism and populism than I could ever enjoy. He was extremely popular back in the day, mainly because there was some advance in wealth distribution during his mandates. But I for one do not think very highly of him; he is a shallow speaker with not much commitment to serious proposals, and there is way too much evidence (but not a whole lot of proof) that he has been lenient with corruption. He also suffers because his chosen successor, Dilma, did not have nearly as much success in managing the economy and ended up being removed by impeachment during a climate of serious despisal and mistrust.
To this day many people call Dilma's impeachment a "coup". I am not one of those people. Brazil does not have a parliamentary system, and Dilma's removal had become a political necessity for actual governance activity to be possiible. We used the tools that are available.
The truth is that Brazilians are just too immature to much of a government make. We always deal with corruption and traffic of influence, not all of it self-conscious. But it has become so much worse under Bolsonaro that I fear that significant healing may not happen during my lifetime. Bolsonaro is so seriously unbalanced that I honestly wonder if he has convinced himself that he is divinely assured of reelection.
As for Lula, he is a fairly plain vanilla populist with slightly left wing tendencies. I will vote for him this time, and as it turns out it will be the first time. I have no great admiration for his policies, nor do I find the party that he founded and that supports him particularly admirable either. Among other reasons, because they revere Lula way too much for confort.
I would have voted for him back in 2018, particularly if I believed that to be the best shot at keeping Bolsonaro away from a position of power. But there was no chance of a resolution in the first round of votes and it turned out that Lula himself was not running either; by that point in time he was actually in prison due to what was eventually revealed to be very ill conducted trials for corruption charges. The judge that dealt with him directly, Sérgio Moro, actually became Law Minister for Bolsonaro and later attempted to present himself as a natural candidate for this ellection.
Unfortunately, there isn't all that much to salvage at this point. I will resolutely vote for Lula and hope that the first round settles the question. But the goal will be to diminish the bleeding. I have no doubt that the harm will be felt for many years to come, and I would not have chosen Lula if I felt that I have any choice.
So. Brazil. The place where I have lived for pretty much all of my life. One of apparently many that are at odds with themselves and express that conflict through their political system.
Currently, that dilemma is most evident in the expectations for the presidential election coming in 87 days. To put it bluntly, it is a choice between a grievous disaster and a far worse disaster. And we are very divided on which is which. It is quite a mess.
On the one side, we have Jair Messias Bolsonaro. I can't very well put into words just how fiercely I repudiate him in every way conceivable. He is an terrible, terrible human being and a much worse politician. I fully expect that he will be put in jail at some point, hopefully not too long after October 2nd 2022. The list of his crimes is long and perplexing; many of the worst are transparent expressions of a deeply immature and insecure, bravado-dependent, self-entitled personality that has not been challenged and educated at anywhere near the proper level. By himself he pushed us at least two thirds of the way towards full blown fascism. In a very embarrassing way, I hasten to add.
Then we have Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or simply "Lula". A person as notable for his common ground with Bolsonaro as for his contrasts. Having served two consecutive mandates as President, Lula is by no means a very extreme politician, but Bolsonaro's supporters make the claim anyway.
Both Lula and Bolsonaro are strongly disliked and also strongly supported. As usual for Brazilian politicians that are well-known, they have severe rejection rates. But both are also seen by their respective support bases as very difficult to do without, and the only realistic hope against a disaster scenario.
I won't talk much about Bolsonaro's supporters in this post. Quite frankly, there isn't a lot worth talking about there. They are deeply irrational, very authoritarian, very scared of facing reality. Worse of all, they have been increasingly reliant on levels of self-inflicted delusion in order to sustain their viability. At this point they are supporting misoginy, open corruption, threats of military force against the elections and the judiciary, invasion of native people's lands, homophoby and even worse. You get the drill. They are a sorry if sometimes too proud lot, rightfully fearful for their future and clinging with growing despair to lies and wild fantasies that they hope will be enough to ward their fears away.
Lula is much more run of the mill a person, much as there are also many people projecting unreasonably high hopes into him. He is a slightly left leaning speaker with, frankly, not a whole lot of content, and far higher levels of nationalism and populism than I could ever enjoy. He was extremely popular back in the day, mainly because there was some advance in wealth distribution during his mandates. But I for one do not think very highly of him; he is a shallow speaker with not much commitment to serious proposals, and there is way too much evidence (but not a whole lot of proof) that he has been lenient with corruption. He also suffers because his chosen successor, Dilma, did not have nearly as much success in managing the economy and ended up being removed by impeachment during a climate of serious despisal and mistrust.
To this day many people call Dilma's impeachment a "coup". I am not one of those people. Brazil does not have a parliamentary system, and Dilma's removal had become a political necessity for actual governance activity to be possiible. We used the tools that are available.
The truth is that Brazilians are just too immature to much of a government make. We always deal with corruption and traffic of influence, not all of it self-conscious. But it has become so much worse under Bolsonaro that I fear that significant healing may not happen during my lifetime. Bolsonaro is so seriously unbalanced that I honestly wonder if he has convinced himself that he is divinely assured of reelection.
As for Lula, he is a fairly plain vanilla populist with slightly left wing tendencies. I will vote for him this time, and as it turns out it will be the first time. I have no great admiration for his policies, nor do I find the party that he founded and that supports him particularly admirable either. Among other reasons, because they revere Lula way too much for confort.
I would have voted for him back in 2018, particularly if I believed that to be the best shot at keeping Bolsonaro away from a position of power. But there was no chance of a resolution in the first round of votes and it turned out that Lula himself was not running either; by that point in time he was actually in prison due to what was eventually revealed to be very ill conducted trials for corruption charges. The judge that dealt with him directly, Sérgio Moro, actually became Law Minister for Bolsonaro and later attempted to present himself as a natural candidate for this ellection.
Unfortunately, there isn't all that much to salvage at this point. I will resolutely vote for Lula and hope that the first round settles the question. But the goal will be to diminish the bleeding. I have no doubt that the harm will be felt for many years to come, and I would not have chosen Lula if I felt that I have any choice.
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