Brazilian elections 2022.

[Takhisis]

plotting the whole thing with Obama administration officials.

a) [citation needed]
b) Is this why you side with Trump?

there's still time

No. Seriously, don't let him become a martyr to rally around.

 

[Takhisis]

Hmmm. Reading Globo right now I see some of the -outgoing?- leader's followers doing a curious salute by raising their right hands.

Also, the Great Leader is going to be a paid employee of his own party, which suggests a rather curious approach to his being against entrenched politics and also about his promotion of private business.

 

[Takhisis]

Bolsonaro has authorised his staff to begin co-ordinating transition into the next administration even if he himself does not officially acknowledge the defeat.

Political violence continues with not only the roadblocks continuint but one car driver just ramming his vehicle through the crowd and trampling some of them, including children.
Bolsonaro now asks protesters to clear streets but take other public spaces, so he's complaining only about the how, not the what.

 

[innonimatu]

there's still time

Bolsonaro? Never, he doesn't have 1/10 the courage Gertúlio had.

I actually sympathize with Vargas. He did a series of nasty things, hell first time in power he copied our dictator who held back Portugal some 40 years. But the devil is always in the details. Vargas, as Salazar, here grabbed power as disctator because of serious problems at the time (constant coups and decomposition of a "democracy" that was in reality an oligarchy). And Vargas at least knew when to bow out and leave the stage. In his second coming his suicide put off the military coup that he could see coming and which would impose on Brazil a worse regime than Vargas' previous period of Estado Novo had been. I see him almost like Brasil's FDR: a ruthless bastard in getting what he wanted done, but one who really tried to do what he thought best for the country and who was competent (and ruthless) enough to handle both external problems and internal political instability making the best of it. But who would only retire from politcis with his own death because veryone around seemed so less competent to just hand over and trust.

This goes back to the origins of the discussions about democracy, those are very relevant for what is going on in Brasil. And what I fear will go on soon in both Europe and North America.
Democracies have an unfortunate tendency to have their institutions captured by oligarchic groups. And against these oligarchs people turn towards "populists" for protection. Aristotle, himself at home among the oligarchs of Athens, branded those "tyrants".
I'll take the greeks for an example, to avoid out contemporary polemics. What did the tyrants do, Agathocles, Agis IV, even Pericles whom Aristotle never dared call tyrant, do? Why, they made some moves to redistribute wealth and power. Pardon debts. So reducing the power concentrated in the families of a few oligarchs. They motives may have been personal or public-minded, but their supporters were the "lower orders" which stood to benefit from that redistribution. Their actions (if successful) actually improved the odds for democracy in the future. But many fell and their states failed shortly after because they rose to power precisely as a last-ditch popular reaction against deep crisis caused by oligarchic mis-rule weakening their states.

Going back to the case of Brasil now, I do not believe that so many people voted for Bolsonaro just because they were stupid. Many voted for him because Brasil is in a deep crisis due to oligarchic rule and people start wanting to back anyone who seems to be against the oligarchs. The stupid thing being that Bolsonaro is as phony as populists come. The oligarchs don't like him but he dreams of picking his own new oligarchs among family and loyalists, not of de-concentrating power. He is not politically completely incompetent though: kept up and in fact I believe he enlarged some programmes that transfer some wealth to the poorer population, started by Lula. That bought him votes.
Lula, we should remember, ended up in prision and Dilma overthrown because she, her appointed political heir, failed to listen to Lula and did some "austerity". A proper populist (which I thing a democrat should be) must look after his constituency.

And there is another problem that can be informed from history. Will Lula be able to retire? Or will he have to carry on despite age and other possible problems, because (as he saw with Dilma) there's no one else to hold the boat steady after him? Brasil's oligarchy won't be much changed in the next 5 years I bet. If not Bolsonaro then some political heir will be there. Can Lula now avoid being an FDR, Vargas or de Valera, unwilling to retire?

 

[DaggerDigwillow]

Is anyone following Glenn Greenwald on this topic?

 

[Takhisis]

Not lately, no. What's he been saying?

 

[innonimatu]

It anyone following Glenn Greenwald on this topic?

No. But now that you mention I should have a look. He lives in Brasil and bothered to research what went on there. A rare real investigative journalist.