How much of a surprise was this victory to you? How much of an upset was this?

Well, it looked pretty bleak after he lost the first round.

You know, I didn't reflect that publicly.

I chose instead to trust what people inside of the Workers' Party were saying.

And that's why I wrote the only, I think the only positive article in the days after the election that appeared in the English language.

Yeah, pretty much.

It was glimmers of hope, yeah.

This is

the second largest reserves of rare earth minerals in

the world.

the world.

And also it will be the last country, one of the last countries in the Americas and the largest country in the Americas that will cease to be governed by a leftist political party.

So on various different levels it's complicated.

And one of the reasons, the only reason this election is even close, because there's always been, I've been living in Brazil for over 30 years, there's always been a percentage of the population that has fascist sympathies, far-right sympathies.

When I say fascist sympathies, I mean literal fascist sympathies.

How are they playing politics, biased in this election? What have we seen?

the second largest reserves of rare earth minerals in

the world.

the world.

And also it will be the last country, one of the last countries in the Americas and the largest country in the Americas that will cease to be governed by a leftist political party.

So on various different levels it's complicated.

And one of the reasons, the only reason this election is even close, because there's always been, I've been living in Brazil for over 30 years, there's always been a percentage of the population that has fascist sympathies, far-right sympathies.

When I say fascist sympathies, I mean literal fascist sympathies.

How are they playing politics, biased in this election? What have we seen?

Yeah, he tried to

solder it off, exactly.

But anyway, his son, he's got three sons, four sons, three who are very active in the international far right, very pro-Israel, very Zionist.

They wear Mossad t-shirts and stuff.

Flavio is a senator, and he's always portrayed himself as the moderate one in the family, although he's got a long history of ties to Rio de Janeiro's paramilitary organized crime militias, which are kind of like extortion and assassination groups.

So one of these militias was involved, called the Crime Officer, the Escritório do Primi, was responsible for the assassination of a city councilwoman named Marielle Franco, an Afro-Brazilian socialist city councilwoman in Rio de Janeiro.

And the leader of that militia, was a guy named Adriano Nobrega, who was just killed by them.

So how are Brazilian politics like American politics, and how are they not like American politics?

From your perspective, how are international actors and transnational financial interests attempting to shape the political environment surrounding this runoff, and what's at stake for Brazilian sovereignty?

Well, the goal of the Silicon Valley tech, uh, fascists and the Trump administration is to transform Brazil into a US protectorate with unrestricted access to its vast mineral and natural resources, including rare earth metals.

It's the s- it has the second-largest rare earth metal reserves in the world, petroleum, and other commodities, you know, uh, basic commodities like sugar or coffee, whatever.

Uh, that's their goal, and they've been working...

I mean, basically, the history of US intervention goes back 70 or 80 years.

I mean, there was a coup attempt, uh, sponsored by Standard Oil against the Getúlio Vargas administration in 1953 when he nationalized the petroleum industry.

He ended up killing himself, uh, to try and preserve the government.

We only have a couple minutes left, Brian, but, uh, as the country approaches this second round of elections, what, what indicators, you know, grassroots movements, on-the-ground developments are you paying the closest attention to as the Brazilian people prepare to cast their ballots?

So how seriously is the mainstream media in Brazil taking these reports?

Well, the mainstream media is now worried a little bit.

And so even the mainstream media is a little bit worried about the perspectives of the Bolsonaro family taking back over the country, because the campaign that Flavio Bolsonaro is running on is that the first thing he's going to do once he takes office, if he wins, is issue a pardon to his father, who's currently serving a 32-year prison sentence for attempting a military coup, a fascist military coup.

pardoning him, giving him a big job in the government, and basically because he's always been a proxy for his father.

He doesn't have any life experience except from the age of 19 forwards, occupying political positions that were set up by his father, and just doing everything his father tells him to do.

He's not particularly studious or anything.

He's not intellectual.

All

It's illegal to be a Nazi or to spread Nazi propaganda.

Because it damages the peace of mind, the, uh, the, the freedom to come and go as they please, the freedom to interact with the public of certain minority groups.

In Brazil, mainly Afro-Brazilians, Northeasterners, but also Jewish people as well.

So it-- In Brazil, this is called the harmony of rights, according to the Brazilian Constitution.

All rights are equally important.

Freedom of expression is a very important right, but it can't be used to trample over some other group of people's rights.

Brian Mier.

The American far right, supported by these crypto fascist libertarians in Silicon Valley, like Elon Musk, has teamed up through Steve Bannon, the point man between the Amer- US far right and the Brazilian far right, and the Bolsonaros and their allies to try and force a change in Brazilian laws, citing free speech absolutism to legalize Nazis in the, in Brazil and other hate groups and to undo the, um, hate speech legislation and things like that.

Brian Muir.

The American far right, supported by these crypto-fascist libertarians in Silicon Valley, like Elon Musk, has teamed up through Steve Bannon, the point man between the US far right and the Brazilian far right.

and the Bolsonaros and their allies to try and force a change in Brazilian laws citing free speech absolutism to legalize Nazis in Brazil and other hate groups and to undo the hate speech legislation and things like that.

And the reason the Silicon Valley tech fascist social media companies are interested in this is that it's to eliminate any kind of liability for their platforms being used to disseminate hate speech.

And so they're interested in weakening Brazil's regulatory atmosphere so that they can't be held liable for crimes, currently crimes committed on their platforms by Brazilians.

It's just a tactic for the far right to achieve its goals.

That's what it really comes down to.

I don't even know how much these tech fascists even believe in their own ideology.

Brian Mier.

The American far right, supported by these crypto-fascist libertarians in Silicon Valley, like Elon Musk, has teamed up through Steve Bannon, the point man between the US far right and the Brazilian far right.

and the Bolsonaros and their allies to try and force a change in Brazilian laws citing free speech absolutism to legalize Nazis in Brazil and other hate groups and to undo the hate speech legislation and things like that.

And the reason the Silicon Valley tech fascist social media companies are interested in this is that it's to eliminate any kind of liability for their platforms being used to disseminate hate speech.

And so they're interested in weakening Brazil's regulatory atmosphere so that they can't be held liable for crimes, currently crimes committed on their platforms by Brazilians.

It's just a tactic for the far right to achieve its goals.

That's what it really comes down to.

I don't even know how much these tech fascists even believe in their own ideology.