Lula, Bolsonaro and Brazil's Election: Lessons for US Voters

Let me tell you something. If you're thinking,

"I'm not gonna vote this year

because my candidate's too far

behind, and I'm just a blue dot in a red state,"

you

better think again. Take a look down

at what just happened in

Brazil.

There's some crazy shit going

on. Most people thought there

was no way Lula could

pull off the presidency,

because he just lost three weeks ago in

the first round,

and no president in history has ever

lost in the first round and

then come back and

won the general election.

In fact, a comeback like that has never happened.

Since Brazil's democracy

was restored in

nineteen eighty-nine,

no candidate

who failed in the first round

was ever able to come back

and win the presidency in

a runoff. It's never happened.

But the voters here turned out

and flipped the

script. And why is that important?

Because there are eerie

similarities between Brazil and what

is going on here in

the United States. Lula's

opponent was Bolsonaro,

not the one you're thinking.

It was his son. So the father, Jair Bolsonaro, he was the president

of Brazil, okay? He's

the far-right populist,

like someone we know.

He ran for re-election. He

lost fair and square, so he claimed the

election was stolen and he staged a

coup. Sound familiar?

But unlike United States, Brazil

did something about it.

They banned him from running

for office until twenty thirty.

Cut to four years

later, his son runs, Flavio Bolsonaro.

You see where I'm heading with

this? It's a lesson, right?

That even cutting off the head of the snake

doesn't necessarily make the snake

go

away. Political

movements don't just disappear

when the leader steps down.

They just adapt. They adapt and

change and put a different face on it

and send the

same shit

parading back out in front of us.