Are democratic principles being trampled on in the name of democracy? Who was REALLY attacking democracy? Those calling for electoral transparency? Or those punishing citizens who dared to?
On January 8th, Bolsonaro protestors swarmed and breached the three major governmental buildings in what has widely, and persistently, been compared to America’s January 6th.
Thousands of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the National Congress building as well as the Presidential Palace and the nation’s top court.
Following the three hour event, President Lula was quoted saying “_This genocidist ... is encouraging this via social media from Miami. Everybody knows there are various speeches of the ex-president encouraging this."“
Reuters reported in the wake of the protests at (or as Reuters described, the “ransacking” of) the presidential palace, congress, and supreme court, “Bolsonaro, whose presidency was marked by divisive nationalist populism, was silent for nearly six hours about the chaos in Brasilia before posting on Twitter that he "repudiates" Lula's accusations against him.
The former president, who has rarely spoken in public since losing the election, also said peaceful demonstrations are part of democracy but invading and damaging public buildings ‘crosses the line.’ “
Naturally, the comparisons to Jan. 6th ensued. Some examples of headlines that followed since include:
- NYT—Brazil and Jan 6 NYT—The Pro-Bolsonaro Riot and Jan. 6 Attack Followed a Similar Digital Playbook, Experts Say.
- National Review—Brazil’s January 6th Moment
- CNN—The most chilling warning for Americans from Brazil’s version of Jan. 6
- Daily Beast—Brazil Is Just the Latest Victim of the Global Fascism Virus++
- MSNBC — How the U.S. exported its January 6 to Brazil++
….. You get the idea.
In the MSNBC segment produced in the aftermath of Jan 8th, mentioned in the introduction of this article, How the U.S. exported its January 6 to Brazil, David Rothkopf of the Daily Beast, author of “American Resistance: The Inside Story of How the Deep State Saved the Nation”, can be seen rambling on MSNBC’s Morning Joe following the unfolding of Jan. 8th about “the global fascism virus” that Rothkopf believes “Is all ultimately part of a bigger movement. Part of a global movement”, one that “emanates originally out of Moscow”
"In country after country there have been efforts to dilute or deconstruct democracy. And this goes from Asia, Modi and India to Brazil with Bolsonaro to Orban in Europe.” 
While MSNBC is blaming Brazil’s political unrest on *screeches* RUSSIA, The Washington Post recently ran headline on January 9th days after “Brazil’s Jan. 6th”, begrudgingly admitting that “Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters”
As Fox News recently reported:
Just days after the 2016 election, the Post ran the headline, "Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say."
"The flood of "fake news" this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation," the Post article at the time began.
"Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment, as an insurgent candidate harnessed a wide range of grievances to claim the White House."
Not only has the Russian troll narrative fallen apart, but so has America’s Jan 6th narrative in the mainstream as Tucker Carlson was recently given access to the entire Jan 6th video archives—proving what many had already suspected. Surprise surprise, the government, with the help of the corporate media, lied.
Unless you live in an MSNBC echo-chamber, you are probably tired of hearing Russiagate conspiracy theories used to dismiss and deflect from legitimate grievances and concerns of communities across the globe. There is no logic in it. Just logical fallacies.
And unless you are sheltered in the blissful ignorance of the Russiagate echochamber, the argument that every right-leaning populist uprising, movement, or candidate in recent years is a Kremlin creation is nothing short of satire. Does satire mimic life, or does life mimic satire?
Matt Taibbi released TwitterFiles #15 in late January, which also provided evidence of the Russian bot narrative being manufactured and deceptive.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1619029772977455105
- mtaibbi
It is a glaring double standard that this “global fascist virus” movement “emanating from Russia” that explains every populist movement MSNBC shitlibs dislike can be put out as legitimate news, while they don’t even mention within the whole segment any of the grievances of the Brazilian “election deniers” and “coup plotters”.
They don’t ask what has led to such decline in the trust of their institution of democracy, they don’t mention measures the Lula-connected judge on Brazil’s supreme court, Moraes, took to suppress Lula’s opposition.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1589631844601188354
- ggreenwald
Reminder that Greenwald, who has been busy pointing out the abuse of power by Lula’s faction as of late, was prosecuted by the Bolsonaro government just a few years ago on serious cyber crime charges in a high profile case. Perhaps that should add weight to Greenwald’s acknowledgment of Lula and his political faction’s government overreach.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1219688194846883848
- ggreenwald
Yet, despite some in the mainstream media opting to acknowledge reality, there are plenty of examples such as this BBC article titled: “What do the Bolsonaro protesters in Brazil want?”:
Throughout Jair Bolsonaro's term, he has repeatedly questioned the efficacy of Brazil's institutions - accusing the Supreme Federal Court of being politically against him, and the voting system of being prone to fraud, despite no evidence to support those claims.
While the BBC article doesn’t acknowledge any of the evidence to support the claims of the court being politically against Bolsonaro, it does acknowledge that much of the security forces/military/police are politically sympathetic with his side.
It's no secret that many security forces are more on the side of Mr Bolsonaro than Lula. Mr Bolsonaro's narrative throughout his term about security in Brazil - and keeping people safe - made sure he had allies within the police and the armed forces.
Brasilia's governor, Ibaneis Rocha - a long-time ally of Jair Bolsonaro - has been suspended for 90 days. The Security Secretary of Brasilia, Anderson Torres, was also dismissed over yesterday's events.
To what point, then, were authorities working with protesters to allow such an invasion of top-security government buildings?
In what is reminiscent of Jan. 6th, and capital police guiding protestors, it was reported that “In the charged hours of Sunday, as Bolsonaro supporters stormed and thrashed government buildings, social media sites were awash with video clips of some police officers laughing and taking photos as rioters occupied the buildings._”
https://twitter.com/Ana_Flor/status/1612160869533732865_
- Ana_Flor
(Remind you of anything?)
At his press conference in the southeastern city of Araraquara, where he was visiting a flood-hit region, Lula blasted the police response, or lack thereof.
"You will see in the images that they [police officers] are guiding people on the walk to Praca dos Tres Powers," said Lula, referring to the square that houses the presidency, Supreme Court and Congress.
The security failures were inadmissible considering the level of planning and preparation for Sunday’s protests, according to Fabio de Sa e Silva, professor of Brazilian studies at the University of Oklahoma and a former Brazilian justice ministry official.
“It was clear it was going to happen. Groups were active on the Internet, people were traveling to Brasilia, buses were organised to get them there. This was clearly anticipated and the police should have been ready to respond,” said de Sa e Silva.
2 days after the protests of Jan. 8th, on January 10th Brazil arrested the security chief of its capitol in the wake of the events of January 8th.Reuters reported:
”Details of the charges leveled against the pair weren't immediately clear.
In the arrest warrant, Moraes cited their failure to ensure proper security forces were in place. He also cited their authorization of the entrance into the city of more than 100 buses with Bolsonaro supporters on board, and their failure to close down a camp at which the former president's loyalists had been gathering for months.”
Others would point out that the military assisted in allowing the riots/protestors into the building - another parallel to January 6th.
WAPO 1/14 - Brazil's Military Blocked Arrests of Bolsonaro Rioters, Official Say
El Pais 1/10 — Was the Military Police Protecting the Brazilian rioters?
France24 1/09 — Brazil Riots Raise Questions of Efficiency and Loyalty of Security Forces** https://twitter.com/BrazilianReport/status/1612427543331602433**
Like MSNBC in the segment cited above, many began to point out that Brazils recent political unrest could be seen as a reflection of a larger macrocosm, and both the continuation and foreshadowing of a larger pattern of civil unrest around the globe —though not through the reductionist lens of it all being a Kremlin plot…as MSNBC did in classic MSNBC fashion.
https://twitter.com/jeffreyatucker/status/1612206816888340481
- jeffreyatucker
Others pointed out that our democracy rhetoric[ [when its convenient for us] ] as a foreign policy apparatus is worn out, and a growing portion of the world doesn’t pay it much serious mind.
https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1612247249484120064
- snowden
Why were the Brazilians protesting? Despite what most of the mainstream media was reporting, it wasn’t just a tantrum because Bolsonaro loss. At least the millions of Brazilians who believe election fraud occurred don’t believe so… They have a specific demand. Millions of Brazilians wanted a public audit of the source code used in the election machines.
The Spectator published a refreshing article on the 11th, that I cannot bring myself to truncate further than what is below, titled “The Truth about ‘Anti-Democratic’ Protests in Brazil”:
Lula was sworn as the new President of Brazil on January 1. He had been the nation’s elected President from 2002-10. Lula, who has served prison time for his involvement in corruption, apparently won 50.90 percent of the vote and the conservative candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, received 49.10 percent.
…Millions of Brazilians have been protesting Lula’s alleged victory since October 30. The spontaneous mass movement has spread around the nation and has no defined national leaders. Many demonstrators are elderly, with a significant presence of young people and families. Above all, these protesters in Brazil are motivated by a strong belief that the presidential election suffered from massive electoral fraud.
On November 9, 2022, the nation’s Defence Ministry sent to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) its long-awaited report on the electoral process. Produced by the technical team of the Brazilian Armed Forces, the report did not reject the possibility of electoral fraud. The report indicated important aspects that required further clarification from the Supreme Electoral Court, basically because, according to the report:
There was a possible risk to security in the generation of electronic voting machine programs due to the occurrence of access of computers to the TSE network during the compilation of the source code;
the functionality tests of the electronic ballot boxes (Integrity Test and Pilot Project with Biometrics) were not sufficient to rule out the possibility of the influence of any malicious code capable of altering the functioning of the voting system; and
there were restrictions on the adequate access of technicians to source code and software libraries developed by third parties, making it impossible to fully understand the execution of the code, which covers more than 17 million programming lines.
In order to avoid a distortion of the findings, the Ministry of Defence issued an official note on November 10 to inform that ‘the accurate work of the team of military technicians in the supervision of the electronic voting system … does not exclude the possibility of fraud or inconsistency in electronic voting machines and the electoral process of 2022’.
So…The armed forces of Brazil concluded that election fraud was not able to be ruled out. Much of Western media coverage on this topic doesn’t even give mention to this fact, let alone highlight it. The Spectator would continue:
According to the Ministry of Defence: ‘It is not possible to ensure that the computer programs that have been implemented at electronic voting machines are free from malicious insertions that alter their functioning.’
As a result, the Ministry of Defence requested the Superior Electoral Tribunal ‘to conduct an urgent technical investigation into what happened in the compilation of the source code and a thorough analysis of the codes that were executed in electronic voting machines’. In a letter in which information is requested for the Superior Electoral Tribunal, the Minister of Defence, Army General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, commented:
‘From the work done, I make two points. First, it was observed that the occurrence of network access, during the compilation of the source code and consequent generation of programs (binary codes), can configure a relevant risk to the security of the process. Second, from the functionality tests, conducted through the Integrity Test and the Pilot Project with Biometrics, it is not possible to affirm that the electronic voting system is exempt from the influence of any malicious code that may alter its functioning.’
Unfortunately, the request from the Ministry of Defence was completely ignored by Justice Moraes. Furthermore, the Superior Electoral Court rejected any voter fraud claims from Bolsonaro’s political party (Liberal Party) in November. The Court justice who made the ruling, Alexandre de Moraes, described the legal filing as ‘bad faith’ litigation and fined the plaintiffs $4.3 million for simply daring to ask the court’s opinion about the election results!
“The request from the Ministry of Defence was completely ignored by Justice Moraes”. Take note of this Judge’s name. This isn’t the only role she has played in polarizing Brazil and causing millions of Brazilians to feel disenfranchised. EVEN THE NEW YORK TIMES **acknowledges the dangerous centralization of power that occured under Moraes’ direction, which has resulted in what many have perceived to be flagrant abuses of power.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1614030144741728256**
- ggreenwald
The fact that most of the media refuses to acknowledge or address the protestors demand to audit the source code, or to provide background context —such as the blatant judicial overreach in the form of court-ordered censorship of political content— is inherit to an underlying factor in the growing distrust for institutions.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1614019603058905106
- ggreenwald
Loss of trust in Brazil’s democratic institutions, specifically the election process and the integrity of the supreme court in Brazil’s case, is a lead driver in growing civil unrest, alongside deteriorating economic conditions for the middle and lower class.
https://twitter.com/AnthonyCabassa_/status/1612209520025165825
- AnthonyCabassa_
To reiterate, if you read most Western mainstream publications on Brazil’s Jan 6th-like event, you will find the protestor’s demands are rarely given anything more than a passing, dismissive mention.
Most mainsteam media coverage does not mention the nuances of the central demand for a public audit of source code(if mentioned at all), and attempt to portray the concerns for election integrity as delusional, irrational and unreasonable, and or unimportant. Hell, maybe they are. But the reality is that an internal investigation by the armed forces, with the backing of top generals, active and former, concluded a code audit was necessary to rule out election tampering is rarely mentioned by western reporting on the matter.
The nuances of Brazil’s supreme court in terms of judicial overreach, especially in regards to social media, is extremely import to address when talking about the issue. Those in Brazil protesting with this knowledge feel gaslit when they read the corporate press covering them.
For instance: Take the following article titled, “Mourão: Brazil lives ‘Violation of the Federative Pact perpetrated ‘ by the STF” from the Gazeta Brazil, which boasts over 387k followers on twitter alone. The article was written to cover the following tweet by former Brazilian general, and vice president(2019-2022 under Bolsonaro) Hamilton Mourao, who wrote:
https://twitter.com/GeneralMourao/status/1593771561772777473
- GeneralMourao
In Mouraro’s statement, the former general and vice president would write:
“Today, unfortunately, there is a violation of the Federative Pact in Brazil, perpetrated by the highest instance of the Judiciary. Unconstitutional and illegitimate actions are adopted in a monocratic manner, attacking federative autonomy. In this sense, they erroneously confuse orders directed to the actions of the PM and DETRANS, violating the Federative Pact, a situation that materializes a state of exception in force, as a result of the extrapolation of the rule of law.”
If one looks into General Mouraro, he is certainly a controversial figure, and far from unbiased, but he does represent the popularity of the skepticism within Brazil of the government’s actions. The former vice president and general’s sentiment echoes that of active generals. And the perceived weaponization of federal agencies and powers to target political opponents has striking similarity to the dynamic seen in America seen between democrats and republicans.
Now whether you regard these Bolsonaro supporters as mostly peaceful protestors, who according to reports were essentially let into the government buildings by the armed services in what is another parallel of Jan 6th…or you regard them as violent rioters, which you believe is another parallel of Jan 6th…the reality everyone should be able to agree on is that faith in institutions is at rock bottom. You would think that those giving lip service to the importance of faith in democracy and democratic institutions would understand the importance of transparency in maintaining trust in said institutions. If the issue truly was about democracy.
France24 published a segment attempting to cover the demand for the source code, which they did acknowledge was the central rallying point of the protestors. However, they dismiss the notion that the source code hasn’t been properly audited, pointing to The Superior Electoral Court(TSE) having shared the code with various, unnamed, agencies. I encourage the reader to check out the comments on the video above to get a glimpse of how Brazilian protestors feel their voices ignored and minimalized.
One comment reads, “If only there were some kind of source code repositories where code may be posted for public review.”
Another comment reads: “If they used free and open source software, this would be an open and shut case. The source code would be publicly available for anyone to inspect. Anyone would be able to look at it and verify that it checks out. Please do not defend closed source software.”
The Brazilians were demanding a *public* audit, to make the code open source, and media pundits gaslight and point to private audits to deflect from the demand, while failing to give any reason why the code can’t be open source, let alone a valid one. (A wise man once said nothing at all). But it isn’t just the question of election integrity that led to the events of the 8th. As stated, an interplaying factor was what millions of Brazilians are deeming to be judicial overreach by the Supreme court.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1614020752449196041
- ggreenwald
Who is “This judge” that has BANNED TEN members of Congress?
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1614018188089479196
- ggreenwald
None other than Justice Moraes of course, the judge mentioned earlier that shot down the request by the Ministry of Defence to allow the Superior Electoral Tribunal to audit the election code.
As you can see in the tweet above, even the New York Times was growing concerned by the level of Judicial Overreach, publishing the title “To Defend Democracy, Is Brazil’s Top Court Going Too Far?”
The Spectator had continued in ‘The truth About ‘Anti-Democratic’ Protests in Brazil’:
But a bit of context is important so as to clarify the nature of the problem.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes was appointed as the nation’s top electoral officer in August 2022. Prior to this, he was appointed by President Lula to join the first composition (biennium 2005-07) of the National Council of Justice (CNJ).
From 2002-05, Moraes served as the Secretary of Justice and Defense of Citizenship of São Paulo state under Geraldo Alckmin, the candidate for Vice President on Lula’s presidential ticket, and who had previously served as the Governor of São Paulo from 2001-06, and then again from 2011-18.
Moraes also held the post of Public Security Secretary under Governor Alckmin, from 2014-16.
…
During this year’s presidential campaign, Justice Moraes ordered social networks to remove thousands of posts and arrested numerous supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro without a trial for posts on social media that he claim**s **‘attacked Brazil’s institutions’, namely his own court. Writing for the New York Times on 26 September, US journalists Jack Nicas and André Spigariol explain that these arbitrary rulings, ‘…could have major implications for the winner of the presidential vote.’
**Curiously, one of the materials censored by Moraes refers to a 2018 federal police inquiry which investigated how hackers might have attacked the computers of the **Superior Electoral Tribunal. In addition to sending some of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s friends and supporters to jail, Moraes has ordered the confiscation of their electronic devices and the freezing of their personal bank accounts. As stated by congresswoman Bia Kicis:
We are living in dark times of brazen attack on democracy. Don’t forget the people who are celebrating the abuses of authority and undemocratic acts by Justice Alexandre de Moraes against journalists, comedians, businessmen and any other common people. They are accomplices of the dictatorship. I have never been silent against tyranny or opponents.
Of course, these judicial rulings are entirely arbitrary and unconstitutional. Supreme Court justices are expected to uphold the law and Brazilians have a very clear constitutional right to protest politically. Under Article 1 of the Brazilian Constitution, all power belongs to the people, who exercise such power by means of their elected representatives or directly. This constitutional right is also protected under Article 5, IV of the Constitution, which communicates that the free manifestation of political thought.
Finally, there is also Article 5 of the Brazilian Constitution stating that international human rights treaties and conventions which are approved in each House of the National Congress shall be equivalent to constitutional amendments. In this context, freedom of political speech in Brazil has been entirely guaranteed by Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which has been turned into domestic law through Federal Decree No. 678 of 1992.
Apparently, however, nobody in Brazil has been allowed to question the transparency of the recent presidential election. Whoever dares to do so ‘will be treated like criminals’, admonishes Justice Moraes. On December 14, he warned that ‘many people still need to be arrested and a lot of fines to be issued’. Such a statement was made following a comment by another Supreme Court justice, Dias Toffoli, concerning arrests and fines in the United States as a result the ‘attack’ on the US Capitol, in January 2021, as well as the alleged dissemination of ‘fake news’ by American conservative thinkers.
This is how brutal dictatorships start.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1614017500462579712
- ggreenwald
The Spectator had concluded The truth About ‘Anti-Democratic’ Protests in Brazil citing above by stating:
**”To conclude, the latest events in Brasília are a result of a spontaneous reaction against an electoral process that millions of Brazilians perceive as being completely lacking in transparency and credibility. Amid allegations of massive electoral fraud, these concerned citizens have been protesting in their millions over hundreds of cities nationwide. The problem is that millions of Brazilians do not trust the Electoral Court and believe that such court is **part of the electoral fraud scheme** in this presidential election.”**
https://twitter.com/MatthewTyrmand/status/1593786432879050753
- MatthewTyrmand
The MSNBC hosts, who I was using as a prompt for everyone that blindly regurgitates their IC-crafted narratives, pretend the Brazilian Bolsonaro supporters are just a bunch of sore losers with no legitimate grievances, to protest over. No civil rights violated, no democratic principle violated. A clean, square and fair election. Just like 2020 in America when, as the twitter files revealed, the FBI along with other alphabet agencies under the Biden administration coerced Twitter and other Big Tech behemoths into censoring the highly relevant Hunter Biden #laptopfromhell story weeks before the election.
https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1612928753646334133
- ShellenbergerMD
These corporate pundits preach about the sanctity of democracy for 12 minutes, but don’t mention the breaches of the principles of democracy inspiring the protests in the first place. Ok, they do spend a little time on it for those in America, but its only to mock those who are concerned about it. According to MSNBC shitlibs, defunding the IRS is authoritarian. Apparently “authoritarians” get upset when government agencies are weaponized against political opponents, while The Good Guys on Team Democracy™ understand the importance of ruling with an iron fist to suppress demands for transparency, or God forbid, questioning governmental institutions and logistics of the electoral process.
Only right-wing authoritarians would dare question The Party!
And ofc, don’t mention the many sitting Brazilian congressmen that were censored, or any of the other Judicial overreaches that deserve a conversation in the name of the fallen god “democracy” .
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1589631419839844352
- ggreenwald
While the MSNBC hosts I am ragging on fervently compare the political landscape of America to Brazil through the lens of Jan 6th and Trumpism/MAGA, they do little to compare the similarity in circumstances that don’t fit their narrative - such as the police having advanced knowledge of the demonstrations weeks in advance, allowing and escorting the protestors inside the public buildings, the weaponization of agencies against political opponents, etc
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1610686277850128386
- ggreenwald
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1614020980753551362
- ggreenwald
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1614018664642285569
- ggreenwald
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1614020364329275397
- ggreenwald
As Greenwald said in the thread, “But the only reason to become a journalist is to do your job no matter the threats and risks”
Former President Bolsonaro Banned From Office in the Name of Protecting “Democracy”
Fast forward 6 months from the events in January:
On June 30th, it was reported that Brazil’s supreme court, the TSE, had barred Bolsonaro from running for office for 8 years. As the Guardian reported:
_“_The move to bar Bolsonaro from seeking public office was based on his highly controversial decision to summon foreign ambassadors to his official residence last July, 11 weeks before the election’s 2 October first round.
At the meeting, Bolsonaro made baseless claims against Brazil’s electronic voting system which caused a public outcry and were denounced by one supreme court judge as politically motivated disinformation…
Judge Floriano de Azevedo Marques claimed Bolsonaro had tried to obtain an unfair advantage in the election with his “abnormal” and “immoral” actions. In belittling Brazil’s democracy in front of the foreign audience, the judge accused Bolsonaro of making their country appear like “a little banana republic”.
The court’s president, Alexandre de Moraes, said the decision to ban Bolsonaro reflected the court’s faith in democracy and its “repulsion towards the shameful populism which has been reborn from the flames of hateful and anti-democratic speech and statements which propagate disgraceful disinformation”.
_
https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/1675188784131112961
- Cernovich
_ In Moraes’ world, banning political opposition from running for office isn’t banana republic behavior…no…questioning the integrity of closed source elections, or demanding greater transparency in the electoral process is the behavior of banana republics. Likewise, according to Judge Moraes, banning the former president from running for office reflects “faith in democracy”.
https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1675258961899970561
- mtracey
https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1675278789020975105
- mtracey
Touching base again with the parallels between Brazil’s Jan 8th and America’s Jan 6th, while Bolsonaro been banned from office for questioning election integrity, Trump has not, despite very similar circumstances and contexts between the 2 events.
The New York Times would published on July 1st an article titled: Why Bolsonaro Was Barred in Brazil but Trump Can Run in the U.S. (Bypass Paywall)
_“It’s a structural difference between the two countries,” s_aid Thomas Traumann, a political analyst and former press secretary for a leftist Brazilian president. Politicians in Brazil know the rules, he said, and the system has helped keep some corrupt politicians from power. “On the other hand, you are preventing the people from deciding.”
Brazil’s centralized electoral system also thwarted Bolsonaro from waging as protracted a fight over the election’s results as Trump did
…
The contrasting fallout for the two men reflect key differences in the two countries’ political and governing structures. The U.S. system has left Trump’s fate up to voters and the slow, methodical process of the justice system. In Brazil, the courts have been proactive, fast and aggressive in snuffing out anything they see as a threat to the nation’s young democracy.
U.S. elections are run by the states, with a patchwork of rules across the country on who is eligible to run and how. In many cases, one of the few hurdles to appearing on a ballot is collecting enough signatures from eligible voters.
In Brazil, elections are governed by a federal electoral court, which, as part of its duties, regularly weighs in on whether candidates have the right to seek office.
Related Reading: CNN - “Georgia Won’t Update Vulnerable Dominion Software Until After 2024 Election_**”
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1675129734882115586
- ggreenwald
**_
- I want to state clearly, I think the proper course of action for Brazil is for the government to make future election code open-source. If an audit proves there was no tampering—great. Then the country moves forward as is with increased unity. If tampering had occurred, then obviously a recount is needed. The institutions and media would surely try to dismiss my opinion as “Supporting a coup”. But being in support of either side having legitimate power when the election is in question is a false dichotomy. Even the protestors wern’’t demanding a transition of power. They were demanding the source code. They were demanding a transparency in the election process.
Millions of Brazilians feel totally and utterly disenfranchised. Suppressing and squashing skepticism of closed source electoral code isn’t pro democracy. Censoring anybody for political speech let alone sitting congressmen, for daring to question the logistics and integrity of non-transparent democratic institutions and processes….isn’t pro-democracy. Banning the previous president Bolsonaro, who lost by a slim margin, from running again for almost a decade, isn’t pro-democracy.
Yet all of this has been done in the name of “protecting” democracy. What, who, is really being protected? Democracy, or the illusion of democracy? And what, who, is really being attacked? Democracy, or the civil and consitutional rights of the Brazilian people?
This article series will continue on discuss how declining trust in institutions and deteriorating economic conditions for the middle and low class are contributing to a rise in global unrest and populism—and will likely continue to do so. Additionally, it will explore the dynamics between economic populism/protectionism, globalism, and the WEF. Covid, the timing of the pandemic, the Covid response, and consequences resulting will be explored in the context of the WEF’s globalist agenda.
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