What is happening in Brazil?
Is it a coup attempt, a coup dry-run or assholes breaking shit because they can?
Who should I be reading?
Brazil?
by David Anderson| 108 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Politics
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires
The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.
Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.
Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.
You cannot shame the shameless.
I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.
If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.
Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.
Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.
Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity
But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.
This blog will pay for itself.
Republicans do not pay their debts.
It’s the corruption, stupid.
A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.
Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll
Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.
MattF
I’d guess similar to J6. Mostly assholes, some political, a few with a plan.
Kent
The difference is that Lula is already president and Bolsonaro is currently eating KFC and living in a condo in Orlando.
The only real question is how much violence and how much time it takes for the Brazilian authorities to bring this to an end
I’m no Brazil expert, but I have to think that if the military was actually going to intervene on behalf of Bolsonaro a part of some kind of autogolpe, they would have done so when he was still president, not after he had packed up and fled the country.
SiubhanDuinne
My friend/landlord is in Brazil right now. I’ve messaged him to ask what’s going on from his perspective (he’s American but lived in Brazil for years and is fluent in Brazilian Portuguese).
Steeplejack
Nothing at the Times or Post as of a few minutes ago. Twitter search on “Brasilia” gets a lot of hits in Portuguese.
JohnC
It’s on the top of the Guardian web site, and on CNN.
CliosFanBoy
@JohnC: And on BBC.
Frankensteinbeck
Lula isn’t there, so it’s not an attempted coup.
CaseyL
“A January 6-style attempted coup”?
To be fair, Latin America has a very long history of coups, popular and unpopular – so it’s more like our January 6 was an attempt at a Latin American style coup here.
However, Bannon was stirring that pot, as he has been doing everywhere else with an extremely polarized political system and electorate. Bannon, and the oligarch money behind him.
The last I heard, Bolsinaro’s forces had entered Congress and the Supreme Court. Police are using tear gas to try driving them back; it’s unlikely to work. They’ll have to bring in heavier guns (metaphorically and literally).
They’re sure to try going after Lula specifically, and that worries me even more.
JohnC
BREAKING 🇧🇷: Bolsonaristas are invading Congress en masse in Brasilia. (ongoing Twitter thread)
PaulB
Unless the military is involved, I would assume this is basically another January 6th occupation of government buildings. Ultimately pointless.
Barney
Organised enough to target presidential palace, supreme court and congress at the same time. That’s worrying.
OzarkHillbilly
Seeing as Bolsonaro has bolted to Florida with plans of going further east (Italy) my money would be on assholes.
Frankensteinbeck
Are the congress or Supreme Court members there in those buildings? It’s Sunday. Odds are good nobody in power is in any of those places? I know Lula is in another city entirely. If they’re just occupying buildings, that’s not going to do them much good. Who they’re overrunning is a lot more important than where, and I haven’t heard answers to that yet.
SiubhanDuinne
@JohnC:
@CliosFanBoy:
Was just the lead story on NPR.
Orange is the New Red
This feels orchestrated to provide Bolsanaro with plausible deniability, since he’s so obviously not there. If it’s successful, I am assuming he’ll head right back. If it’s not, then he can go wherever.
CaseyL
@Orange is the New Red: Pretty thin plausible deniability, imh, unless he’s been using cutouts and burner phones for the last few months, which is certainly possible.
Major Major Major Major
@PaulB: especially with the lack of any actual like… election certification stuff. Just your unfortunately bog standard political riot.
My question is, how long until bolsonaro is hospitalized following an alligator attack?
hells littlest angel
I hope Brazilian law enforcement shows us how it’s done.
CliosFanBoy
@Frankensteinbeck: Actually that can be a good time for a coup. Seize the locus of power while the leader is absent. (I used to study coups)
Mike in NC
The media needs to ask NY Rep.-elect George Santos (or whatever his name is today) what’s going on so he can baldly lie about it
It was reported that Bolsonaro arrived in Florida last week with several military officers, so it was just a typical vacation for a right-wing despot.
Frankensteinbeck
@CliosFanBoy:
But that only works if you have a government to put into place there, not if you’re a bunch of rioters sitting in the congressional building yelling that you’ve voted unanimously that Lula is a doody-head. The rest of Brazil’s government isn’t going to give a damn where these people are squatting in terms of who takes orders from who.
Carol
The post has this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/08/bolsonaro-invade-congress-lula/
Omnes Omnibus
@Frankensteinbeck: Yes, a government is more than its buildings. Right now, I am calling it a fascist riot, not a coup.* I reserve the right to make a different call as things progress.
*Neither is a good thing.
piratedan
makes me hope that our own DOJ is ready to act and start dropping indictments.
I understand that we’ve had to be patient, watching the continuous rampage of GOP behavior, enabled, if not rewarded by people under indictment/investigation is nauseating.
BlueGuitarist
@hells littlest angel:
my Portuguese is rusty but looks like a centrist member of congress tweeted that the police decided this was a good time to buy coconut water
eta Andre Janones
Policíais deixaramm a barreira e foram comprar água de coco em momento da invasão.
Google translate says
Police officers left the barrier and went to buy coconut water at the time of the invasion
https://twitter.com/AndreJanonesAdv/status/1612178857213165571?cxt=HHwWhoCwqaCIzt8sAAAA
Frankensteinbeck
@Omnes Omnibus:
Fair. And to be clear, this could be a coup, but it would require things to be happening that we haven’t heard about yet, like separate groups grabbing Lula, or someone really important in those buildings that we don’t know about because we don’t know their government, or the military joining the rioters. Unless we hear about such things it’s a riot, which like you say is definitely a bad thing.
If I were to throw money at a wild guess, I would say these rioters think they’re sending a signal that will inspire the military and/or all Brazilians to revolt. I know American conservative terrorists have operated on that belief repeatedly.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe it’s dumbass coup.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: No, that was last week in the House.
Barney
This is serious enough that they may kill police officers:
https://twitter.com/davidrkadler/status/1612170270122418176
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: Total coincidence!
Tom Levenson
This thread shows a lot of seriously ungood shit happening in Brasilia. It suggests (among a lot of video from the action right now) that this is was organized/instigated from Florida.
Tom Levenson
@Barney: Great minds…
Bill Arnold
@CaseyL:
“Bannon, and the oligarh money behind him” need to be destroyed. They are Fascists, including those oligarchs involved.. At a minimum their political influence needs to be zeroed out.
jonas
Unfortunately, a lot like American LEAs, most of them are rightwing chuds that tacitly, if not openly, supported Bolsanaro, so it’s not clear now how motivated they’re going to be to intervene here. (I also have no idea how security in Brasilia operates, whether its federalized, local, etc.) The military is also very unreliable in this regard. I hope Lula and his cabinet stay safe.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I have no idea if this is true, but if it is, this was a planned coup
jonas
@Bill Arnold: Isn’t Bannon supposed to be in jail? How the hell is he still running around, much less orchestrating coups in Brazil?
Baud
@Tom Levenson: That first video suggests that it was like Jan. 6: a “protest” that became an insurrection. Not clear what the military police are doing now.
Philbert
@Frankensteinbeck: Though Lula won the Presidency, the right wing won the legislature. No telling of their inclinations.
Chetan Murthy
@Frankensteinbeck: Wasn’t the Ayatollah Khomeini living in Paris around the time of the Iranian Revolution? And he flew back when it had been accomplished ?
Frankensteinbeck
@Chetan Murthy:
The Shah wasn’t.
EDIT – I shouldn’t snark. The point isn’t where Bolsanaro is, it’s where Lula is. A crowd taking over buildings without taking people is a lot less of a coup than if they take the people they want to depose.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Here’s a disgustingly familiar sight
Bill Arnold
@jonas:
Don’t know, but this from October 21 2022 says that he was allowed to remain free pending appeal.
Nichols cushioned the blow of the four-month jail term by opting to allow Bannon, 68, to remain free pending appeal, which is likely to push the issue well into next year and perhaps longer.
Baud
Random reddit comment
Ryan
@Baud: Probably breaked KFC with Trump while they were there.
Baud
I guess the other thing we need to watch out for is this inspiring MAGA people to ramp up their acts of terrorism here.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
If this was organized by Bolsonaro, that makes it weirder. Right now it feels like an Underpants Gnomes Coup. 1). Rioters take over government buildings while the officials are gone. 2). … 3). Bolsonaro is president again!
What am I missing?
Mike in NC
@Chetan Murthy: That’s correct. A proper dictator (like Lenin and Saddam Hussein) makes sure the opposition is dead, not living comfortably in exile and waiting for a signal to come home. The Shah wasn’t smart enough to figure that part out.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
2 would have to be military support, which I guess we haven’t seen yet. Otherwise, the intent may be more to make a “show of force” to intimidate rather than to actually achieve a coup.
ian
@Frankensteinbeck: They want the military to intervene, then restore Bolsonaro.
It is crazy, but no one said these people are great strategic planners.
Omnes Omnibus
The time for that was before the Lula’s inauguration.
ian
@Omnes Omnibus: I refer you to the second line of my previous comment.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Hard to plan coups over the holidays.
Omnes Omnibus
@ian: Indeed.
Snarki, child of Loki
Where are the photos of the Brazilian MAGA Shaman, and is he wearing a thong?
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
We’ll let you go down there and tell them that.
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t speak Portuguese.
Frankensteinbeck
@ian:
I know Jack all about the Brazilian military, so I guess I’ve hit my speculation limit.
Cameron
The pictures I just looked at over at MSN aren’t encouraging. One of them has a caption reading that protesters are clashing with police, but I didn’t see any police.
Cacti
It’s a handful of dumbasses occupying empty buildings on a Sunday in the Federal District.
Absolutely nothing going on elsewhere in the country.
Lula is already sworn in and Bolsonaro and family have fled to Floriduh already.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Fucking Donald Trump, you know he is involved with this somehow.
Dear Jack:
Lock. Him. Up.
prostratedragon
Their Former Guy entered this country on a diplomatic visa. Is it still valid in the face of any legalities?
Dangerman
@hells littlest angel: Amen. The assholes want to fuck around, they need to find out, good and hard.
CaseyL
@WaterGirl:
Gods, yes. Please. NOW.
Trump is providing a base of operations, technical support, and quite possibly funding (as a funnel for oligarch billions) for fascist insurrectionists all over the world.
Baud
@CaseyL: C’mon. While that wouldn’t surprise me in the least, let’s not treat speculation as fact the way that the Republicans do.
CaseyL
@Baud: Sure.
It’s just like making off with classified documents and then not securing them, leaving them all over the place, so anyone who’s interested can have a look.
He’s not actively helping Bolsinaro: he’s just letting him roam free around the compound, talking to and meeting with whoever he wants.
Mob deniability. Always.
AWOL
@jonas: Garland.
Baud
@CaseyL:
Mob tactics are what make the mob hard to prosecute. But I don’t want President DeSantis’s DOJ to treat speculation as fact, so I’m going to be consistent when it comes to our DOJ.
Omnes Omnibus
@AWOL:
Please tell me this is snark.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Come on, if it’s in service of our side, everything is okay. You know that.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course, we’re the good guys.
Starfish
The Brazilian Report
@AllBrPolitics [Twitter]
Same as above but on Mastodon instead of Twitter
Baud
@Starfish:
I don’t know why but I really like mastodon’s interface more than Twitter’s.
Sanjeevs
https://twitter.com/BrianMteleSUR/status/1612203396945301504?cxt=HHwWgMDSydOc2d8sAAAA
Brazilians doing this all wrong.
Surely you flip the soldiers then work your way up over a period of years, or decades
Pontiou5Pilate5
Sounds like its already over. About 30 min after Lula decreed the military retake control they cleared everyone out. They also issued an arrest warrant for Brasilia Security Secretary Anderson Torres. Lula just spoke and was not fucking around. Called them out as the fascists they are and said everyone involved will be punished.
Starfish
@Baud: There are many Mastodon interfaces, and these nerds make sure I know about many of them.
AlaskaReader
Copy cat insurrection
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/23/brazil-bolsonaro-bannon/
Baud
I love the way we’ve made Brazil’s situation all about us.
Baud
@Starfish:
The ones I’ve seen have been good.
phdesmond
@Barney:
some of the rioters are dressed in Brazilian native disguises.
WaterGirl
@Pontiou5Pilate5: Even the guys who just had to have their coconut water? :-)
Cacti
@Baud: Main character syndrome is real.
CaseyL
@Sanjeevs:
Good! Lula not messing around is very good.
different-church-lady
Welp, now we know why Bolsonaro was visiting Trump.
different-church-lady
It’s not often you get a perfect 1:1 control in your democracy experiments, but here we are.
MobiusKlein
@Pontiou5Pilate5:
One big difference between Brazil 1/8 and US 1/6 is that Trump still controlled the military on 1/6
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: In Brazil, Lulu controls the military, right?
In Brazil, this attempted insurrection came AFTER the new present was sworn in, right?
Doesn’t look like a perfect match to me.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
Maybe Bolsonaro thought the military would ride to his rescue. He is former military I think
David 📢 Speaker 📢 Koch☑️
News accounts say the insurrection was thwarted by heating engineer Harry Tuttle
WaterGirl
@David 📢 Speaker 📢 Koch☑️: ???
PaulWartenberg
It looks like a coordinated riot by the arch-conservative elements of the voting base, but without the focus of overthrowing the presidency or seizing control of the buildings.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/jan/08/brazils-presidential-palace-and-supreme-court-stormed-by-pro-bolsonaro-supporters-live
It’s not the military staging it, but the state police.
Brazil was a nice electoral flip away from a wanna-be dictator in Bolsonaro, but the election itself was close enough that Bolsonaro’s supporters are angry and conspiratorial the way the MAGA voters are here in the U.S. Lula’s not in a good situation in that country, not unless he gets a lot of economic relief to calm the population.
tECHIDNA
@Baud: Considering that Steve Bannon uncontestably was advising Brazil’s TFG and their government, it sorta is.
If it comes out that Bannon, Steve Miller, and the rest of the USA’s TFG Crime Syndicate were busy building the metaphorical scaffolding for the riots today, that makes this a whole ‘nother level of international incident that President Biden must comment on. And given that the Brazilian local law enforcement but not the feds were flipped (cf. https://balloon-juice.com/2023/01/08/brazil/#comment-8730751) — a rookie coup mistake — this definitely seems to be a foreign, likely Floridian production.
I wouldn’t be surprised if President Lula brings Bannon up on criminal charges and requests extradition — and that will be a barrel of laughs. Can’t wait for Squeaker McCarthy to find a way to fuck this up too.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: No, no, the point of the control is to have something to measure the variables against.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
From the movie Brazil: “As Jack is about to start the torture, [Harry] Tuttle and other members of the resistance break into the Ministry, shooting Jack, rescuing Sam, and blowing up the Ministry building.”
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Never saw it, thank you for the info!
different-church-lady
@Steeplejack: Which, unfortunately, is just in Sam’s imagination, as he has had a mental breakdown. (Spoiler alert…)
prostratedragon
@WaterGirl: From the movie Brazil, which I too was reminded of. Does Criterion stream the correct version?
Ken
I’ve gone one better and made it all about me.
(Actually I was napping, and slept through the whole thing.)
WaterGirl
@Baud:
All politics is personal.Everything is personal!
opiejeanne
@Baud: Who are you on Mastodon? Because none of the Bauds I’ve spotted seem to be you.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: Except in the TV edit (made very much against Terry Gilliam’s wishes, and nearly released as the US theatrical version)!
evodevo
@David 📢 Speaker 📢 Koch☑️: LOLOL
prostratedragon
@Matt McIrvin: It really matters which version you see. The only one I know for sure is correct is on dvd. Since that’s released by Criterion, I imagine their streaming service carries that version too. Since the plot ultmately involves torture and kidnapping activities drawn from real life, it was censored for a while.
David 📢 Speaker 📢 Koch☑️
@prostratedragon:
wiki has a good answer to that question
The complete version clocks in at 2hrs:22mins. Accepting nothing more or less.
prostratedragon
@David 📢 Speaker 📢 Koch☑️: The full version was neither available on Prime when I checked nor shown on TCM the last time they ran it several months ago.
ETA that as to general emotional tone there is nothing atypical there.
Citizen_X
Nominated.
Steeplejack
@David 📢 Speaker 📢 Koch☑️:
According to JustWatch, Brazil is available to rent from the usual streaming sources (but not Criterion). I checked Amazon Prime, and their version is the 132-minute version.
Geminid
@phdesmond: That sounds like the Boston Tea Party!
Geminid
@CaseyL: Reports are that Bolsonaro is based at a house in the Orlando area now.