On The Ballot: The United States Vs. Bolsonaro
Well, at least they are not hiding it anymore.
You cannot get more explicit than this unless they just came out and said it point blank:
The discreet US campaign to defend Brazil’s election
Amid widespread speculation about a coup attempt, the Biden administration pressured politicians and generals to respect the result
As Brazil prepared to hold a presidential election last October, many governments around the world viewed the vote with a mounting sense of foreboding.
The far-right incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, was openly flirting with subverting the country’s democracy. He attacked the electoral process, claiming that the electronic voting machines used by Brazilian authorities were unreliable and calling for a paper ballot instead. He constantly hinted at the risk of the election being stolen, echoing claims made by Donald Trump in the US.
But in the end, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s win in October was accepted without serious challenge by Bolsonaro and the veteran leftwing politician was inaugurated on January 1.
The fact that the election was not seriously challenged is a testament to the strength of Brazil’s institutions. But it was also in part the result of a quiet, year long pressure campaign by the US government to urge the country’s political and military leaders to respect and safeguard democracy, which has not been widely reported.
Whew:
- “A quiet, year long pressure campaign by the US government”.
- “not widely reported”
When a foreign government comes in and demands every local obey the “results” of an election, that’s never a good sign.
How obvious could they get?
The story goes on:
The aim was to drum home two consistent messages to restive generals in Brazil and Bolsonaro’s close allies: Washington was neutral on the election result but would not stand for any attempt to question the voting process or the result.
You hear that Brazil? A foreign government won’t dare allow you to question “your” own elections. How quaint you thought you had control over those.
Democracy relies on the democratic process working correctly. It is essential that the process works openly, and if it appears fraudulent, to be made more transparent. Locking down any form of questioning is the exact opposite of democracy. But that gets lost on your average grey mass participant.
Especially when that demand comes from foreigners.
The following may seem like a joke, but it is not. The author then openly admits that the United States has done military coups in Brazil in the past:
The campaign was not without risk. The US has been frequently criticised in the region for interfering in its internal affairs; in 1964 Washington backed a military coup in Brazil that overthrew the government of leftist president João Goulart and ushered in a 21-year dictatorship.
Those events fuelled longstanding scepticism of the US among the Brazilian left, including Lula, who in 2020 said Washington was “always behind(opens a new window)” efforts to undermine democracy in the region.
I audibly laughed out loud after reading this. We’ve gone from “military coups” to “fortifying democracy”. We instituted a dictatorship a couple of decades ago, but now we just care so much about the democratic process, apparently. What kind of soy-filled knuckle-dragger actually believes this stuff?
Now you may wonder: Who does the author say worked on “fortifying the Brazilian democracy?”
You’re going to love this:
The solution was a concerted but unannounced campaign across multiple branches of the US government, including the military, the CIA, the state department, the Pentagon and the White House. “This was a very unusual engagement,” says Michael McKinley, a former top state department official and ex-ambassador to Brazil.
Cue the laughter once again.
Yep, the Pentagon is definitely known for fortifying democracy all right. And the CIA? This has to be added as a joke for us.
The CIA, which overthrows governments left and right, now suddenly became the champion of Brazilian democracy. Even the state department being included here is a hoot.
Do you now understand why I said that they could not possibly be more obvious in publicly proclaiming that they rigged the Brazilian elections?
This is a direct message to those “in the know”—other world leaders—to let them know what they did and to not mess with Washington or they’ll get their own taste of Washington’s “fortification of democracy”.
They even came with threats:
Further reinforcement of the message to Brazil’s top brass came from General Laura Richardson, head of US Southern Command which covers Latin America, during visits last September and in November 2021, officials said. CIA chief William Burns also came and told the Bolsonaro administration not to mess with the elections
They even met with military chiefs to tell them not to even try:
At the same time as the US was conducting its own messaging campaign, key figures in Brazil’s institutions were holding their own private meetings with military chiefs to try to persuade them to stay within the bounds of the constitution and raising the alarm abroad about the risks of a coup. Some of those involved have spoken to the Financial Times, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions. Many still prefer to avoid any mention of their roles.
Talk about real election interference. We had CIA directors, infiltrated Brazilians, and American military generals directly threatening them.
And then comes the public announcements:
The US decided to make one last push in favour of respecting the election. Biden was in Mexico at the time of the insurrection for a North American leaders’ summit, and saw what was happening on the news. “He asked right then to speak with Lula,” says a senior administration official. “After the call, he proposed to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and to Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador that we issue a trilateral joint statement supporting Lula and Brazil. It was a first of its kind for North America.”
It is just so odd, they never do joint statements for democracy when their guy loses. I guess the democratic process only matters when the winner is whoever Washington wants.
But their little pet turned on them in the end:
In April he took a big delegation to China for a three-day, two-city tour. On that trip, Lula rejected US sanctions on Huawei, the Chinese tech company, lashed out at the west’s military support for Ukraine and endorsed Beijing’s drive for alternatives to the US dollar.
Lula is criminal, corrupt scum. But even he knows not to trust the United States. They got him in power to get Bolsonaro out, and he knows he has to do a little of his own fortifying against the US if he wants to remain in power.
It is my hunch that Lula is courting the US for more support. They got him in expecting a lackey (or at least a non-Bolsonaro), not realizing that Lula is the type of criminal that wants on-going support. Something that China is more than willing to provide.
Or perhaps Lula used the States to get into power and then pivoted to China to prevent the US from doing the same to him. Smart tactic if so, we will see how it plays out.
I spoke about my thoughts on the election in the article The Brazilian Elections: Bolsonaro Out. One piece of relevance is this:
It is incredibly likely that there was some Lula “encouragement” by the United States regime, simply because Biden was so quick to congratulate a “safe, fair, secure, credible election”. If they are using the same language there as they used here, it is a pretty obvious tell about the truth.
South America has always been a battleground for hegemony between Western states and Russia/China. It seems the Westerners are winning.
It is now no longer “likely” that there was US encouragement (in the context meaning fraud). It is now guaranteed, as they are openly admitting it.
And my ending paragraph in that article applies even more now:
Either way, my sincere condolences to Brazilians. We here in the States know full well what it is like to be subjugated under both the demographic boot, the leftist boot, and the electoral fraud boot. The combination of the three does not provide much breathing room.
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