Tuesday — exactly one week before the USA's mid-terms — a gushing headline in the New York Times was meant to show (and reassure) leftists of all nations that, in America as well as abroad, the left is far from defeated.
One day later, the newspaper of record was at it again, with its international edition displaying another hagiography to Lula on its front page while the U.S. edition lionizes The Digital Army That Catapulted Lula to Victory in BrazilAna Ionova in Brasília, Adam B. Ellick in São Paulo, and Jack Nicas).
Also featured was Flávio Bolsonaro Flees Brazil for the U.S. After Election Defeat: Isn't that usually something does not happen unless you are living in something akin to a communist dictatorship?
But again, going most berserk was the international edition, one of whose top articles on the front page was the essay This Is Bigger Than Brazil.
Titled This Victory Is Far Bigger Than Brazil in the dead tree version, the piece is bVanessa Barbara, who "covers Brazilian politics, culture and everyday life." Only at the end do we learn that she is a fiction-writer: "Vanessa Barbara is the editor of the literary website A Hortaliça and writes Portuguese fiction and nonfiction." In her guest essay, she can't put enough superlatives about Lula:
By any metric, the 80-year-old leader’s comeback is extraordinary, having secured 51.8 percent of the vote against Mr. Bolsonaro’s 48.2 percent — a margin of some 4.4 million votes. But Brazil’s polarized politics rarely allow for a neat resolution. Shortly after the result was called on Sunday, Mr. Bolsonaro announced he would seek to annul the election, refusing to accept his defeat.
Except that, if the right is correct, what happened was not a "defeat" for Flavio that he "refused to accept", just as his father (see next blockquote, below) was not necessarily involved in a "coup attempt" in 2022.
Using the USA's 2020 election as a prime example, I have explained before why the use of words like "overturn" and "his defeat" as a descriptive from the outset is wrong and, indeed, in full propaganda-mode. What Flavio Bolsonaro (like his father Jair) has not accepted is "the result" — a result which sounds (and because it sounds) unrealistic, manufactured, suspicious, and bogus. In the eyes of both Bolsonaros, it is Lula and the Left who, both in 2022 and in 2026, have not accepted his/their defeat. Just as in Trump's eyes, it was the Democrat party members (or leaders) who did not accept Joe Biden's defeat in November 2020.
… it became clear that Mr. Bolsonaro — the son of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s disgraced ex-president who is currently under house arrest for a coup attempt in 2022 — might actually win the presidency. For millions of Brazilians, it was a moment of existential dread: How could the country trade a seasoned statesman for a political nepo baby whose name is linked to a long list of scandals, including alleged ties to Rio de Janeiro’s militias and friendships with contract killers and fraudulent bankers?
As for Lula's ties to in-depth fraud and corruption, they are, needless to say, not to be mentioned (except later, in an entirely exculpatory paragraph). And when a leftist neophyte comes from outside the political class, in Brazil or elsewhere (e.g., Obama vs. McCain 2008), suddenly the "seasoned statesman" is not to be defended, not in the slightest.
 |
| Flávio Bolsonaro, CPAC 2026, Grapevine, Texas |
 |
| Eduardo Bolsonaro, CPAC 2025, National Harbor, Maryland |
 |
| Jair Bolsonaro, CPAC 2023, National Harbor, Maryland |
Vanessa Barbara continues:
Regardless, Mr. Lula’s victory represents a win for the forces of democracy not only in Brazil, but around the world.
Mike Benz reports that
The Lula regime is now going around seizing the passports of every major figure associated with the political party that beat him in the general election 3 weeks ago.
Does that sound like the actions of a legitimate winner? Is that supposed to represent "a win for the forces of democracy"? Or a win for a banana republic?
… signaling the country’s will to defend its hard-won democracy. Now, with Mr. Bolsonaro threatening to challenge the results, Brazil’s post-election turmoil will be a stress test for the democratic foundations that Brazilians have just defended — and for one of the last leftist leaders in a neighborhood of gathering far-right forces.
… Lula has already embraced the role of standard-bearer for the democratic left at a time when reactionary populism across the globe has grown louder and more aggressive.
Yeah? How do "the democratic foundations" sync with the desire of Lula the "seasoned statesman" and Alexandre de Moraes to imprison anyone they view as their foes?
Vanessa Barbara acknowledges that
Starting next year, the right will hold majorities in both the lower chamber of Congress and the Senate, as well as multiple state governorships.
Which, needless to say — and as we wrote yesterday — is instrumental in fueling suspicion about the entire second round of the election.
But it turns out that for years, Brazil's "democratic left" has not only tried to confiscate passports and imprison political foes, it has been trying to get Brazilians living (or having fled) abroad to be extradited back to Brazil.
Again: Does that sound like "the democratic foundations" of a "democracy"? Or more like a banana republic, if not an outright communist dictatorship?
CRUCIAL FACTS ON THE FLAVIO BOLSONARO MATTER:
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 27, 2026
It's not just Flavio Bolsonaro who fled Brazil to escape the tyrannical persecution of Alexandre de Moraes and the pro-Lula wing of the Supreme Court. There are dozens of Brazilian exiles who have done the same: dissident journalists, activists, bloggers, and politicians who all fled to avoid certain prison for political opposition.
In most of these cases, Moraes has demanded the extradition of those who fled and whom he wants to imprison back in Brazil. But Moraes' extradition requests have been repeatedly denied by multiple countries and institutions on the grounds that these prosecutions are politically motivated or otherwise corrupted. Among those conclu[d]ing this: Spain, Italy, INTERPOL, and even the US under Biden.
Just today, Italy refused Brazil's demand to extradite a person named @edutagli, who was once a top aide to Moraes, but then fled to Italy after Moraes accused him of having been my source in a huge leak from Moraes' office that I obtained for reporting I did with @Folha in 2024. That massive leak enabled us to publish roughly 20 articles proving systemic abuses of power by Moraes against his political enemies: exactly the reason so many Brazilians, including Bolsonaro, know they can't get a fair trial in Brazil.
Italy today refused to extradite the person accused of being our source on the grounds that the proceedings would be a farce because Moraes — as he so often does — wants to act as the supposed victim, investigator, and judge, and thus his demand falls well outside of Italy's extradition standards. Again, multiple countries have concluded the same, showing what a farce Brazil's once-respected judicial system has become under the Lula/Moraes regime.
Moraes has overseen a system of political persecution masquerading as criminal justice that has been recognized as a sham by multiple countries that are not exactly Bolsonaro allies. Nobody in their right mind who is a political enemy of Moraes would remain in Brazil once if it is clear that he intends to imprison you, since he has proven that guilt is a foregone conclusion and he operates with no legal or constitutional limits of any kind.
That is why asylum under international law exists: to protect those who cannot obtain justice in their own country because the justice system has been corrupted and commandeered for political persecution. Many people, such as Julian Assange, have needed that protection (which Lula cheered). Now people need it from Moraes in Brazil. That is sadly one of the main legacies of both Lula and Moraes over the last six years.
No comments:
Post a Comment