Um, how, how was he sort of able to be this like radical union organizer pushing back against, against this authoritarian, like, uh, why wasn't he disappeared? Like, how did that work?

He was arrested very briefly.

So what happens, military codes of power in 64, it tries to maintain the charade that it is not really a dictatorship for several years.

Elections are still happening, even though the opposition is purged.

By 68, it takes this hard turn in December of that year.

issuing what's called Institutional Act Number 5, which is like the mask kind of comes off.

No more habeas corpus.

Like was some of that getting to this like we're going to take action on this even if you didn't see us doing it before? Or is this like a different analytical framework?

Um, how, how was he sort of able to be this like radical union organizer pushing back against, against this authoritarian, like, why wasn't he disappeared? Like, how did that work?

He was arrested very briefly.

So what happens, military codes of power in 64, it tries to maintain the charade that it is not really a dictatorship for several years.

Elections are still happening, even though the opposition is purged.

By 68, it takes this hard turn in December of that year.

issuing what's called Institutional Act Number 5, which is like the mask kind of comes off.

No more habeas corpus.

Like was some of that getting to this like we're going to take action on this even if you didn't see us doing it before? Or is this like a different analytical framework?

So what happened?

It's a two-part story.

One is the online organizing that the campaign was much better at in the second round.

but also real-world engagement from people who I think we should understand as being freaked out, as sort of terrified by the prospect of a Flavio return.

Even in the night of the first round, when much of Lula's coalition was incredibly dispirited, it looked like the writing was on the wall, Flavio was going to trounce, waltz to victory in the second round.

Lula said something, which is we have to have a completely new campaign.

That campaign is over.

How do we think the Lula government will address this?

Bolsonaro, assume total ignorance, the Right, Flavio

Bolsonaro, who's a current senator, the son of the former president, who was running as his father, who was in jail for serving a long prison sentence for attempting a coup after losing to Lula, the incumbent, in 2022.

He handpicked his son to run in his stead this time, and He did pretty well.

He did better than many expected.

There was a bevy of other potential right-wing candidates who also were jostling for position.

And Flavio actually came out ahead in the first round of voting, beating many of the polls that had Lula ahead in the first round, but maybe by a small margin.

The fact that Flavio beat many of the polls suggested that there was this wave of people out there that the polls weren't capturing that favored the far right.

So, how much of it can we look at and say, this is Lula kind of buckling down and actually going out and winning votes, and how much of it may be Bolsonaro letting people know what his agenda was going to be and causing some shock?

Mm-hmm

...

the world today is defined much more by precarious labor arrangements, by the, the sense that many ordinary Brazilians have that I am an entrepreneur because I keep my own hours, I drive Uber, I deliver, you know, food on Grubhub or, or whatever, you know, the equivalent is.

The PT, they've tried.

That's one of the things that th- this administration, the third administration did do, like under Guilherme Boulos of the MTST, was to try to find a way of connecting with this new class of, of workers.

Um, nothing has really clicked, uh, because they have...

They're, they've inculcated the sense, they've inculcated and, and internalized the atomized idea of neoliberalism, which is you've got to make your own fortune, you've got to make your own job, you've got to make your own...

Mm-hmm

He's constantly attacking the Supreme Court.

Casting doubt on the voting machines in Brazil and the electoral process, he has denied that the folks in January 8 were trying to attempt a coup against the Brazilian state.

So although he's using softer words, it doesn't mean that he's a moderate.

He is as far right as he can get.

And it's not exactly a novelty, given that Trump has this sort of policy, not just with Brazil, but with the rest of the world as well.

The role of the media in criticizing this relationship between Trump and Bolsonaro has been very frustrating.

It's in everybody's conversations, but yet it's not in the scrutiny that it deserves.

Maybe because the legacy meeting in Brazil is right-leaning, but we shouldn't be surprised.

He's constantly attacking the Supreme Court.

Casting doubt on the voting machines in Brazil and the electoral process, he has denied that the folks in January 8 were trying to attempt a coup against the Brazilian state.

So although he's using softer words, it doesn't mean that he's a moderate.

He is as far right as he can get.

And it's not exactly a novelty, given that Trump has this sort of policy, not just with Brazil, but with the rest of the world as well.

The role of the media in criticizing this relationship between Trump and Bolsonaro has been very frustrating.

It's in everybody's conversations, but yet it's not in the scrutiny that it deserves.

Maybe because the legacy meeting in Brazil is right-leaning, but we shouldn't be surprised.