You likely have heard already about what happened in Brazil yesterday, on Sunday January 8. Protesters aligned with the ousted president Bolsonaro, took over several federal buildings in the capital city Brasilia, and occupied them, after the new president, Lula da Silva, was sworn in on January 1st.
The direct cause of the continuing unrest is the refusal of millions of Brazilians to accept the election result because of persistent and strong indications of fraud (including far too many areas where 100% of the vote went to Lula, which is statistically impossible, as well as other examples that clearly demand closer scrutiny). Even the report of the military indicated that the recent elections were not secure. That would be enough to protest over, but things are being made much worse by the actions of several federal instances, chief among them those of Alexandre de Moraes, president of the Superior Electoral Court at the Supreme Federal Court. De Moraes has been actively oppressing opposing voices, politicians, reporters, news aggregators, elected officials, famous people who hold the ‘wrong views’, etc. This includes forced closure of social media accounts, but also annulment of passports and freezing of assets. The main grounds for such heavy handed approach was the quest to ‘combat fake news’, more precisely any ‘rumor’ about election malfeasance. If you say there were irregularities in the elections, you are committing the crime of spreading fake news!
De Moraes even removed the governor of the Federal District, Ibaneis Rocha, from his position for 90 days! Reason was a single request to remove the governor, citing that the governor had allowed the protests this Sunday to take place.
According to Tuli Report, this removal request was sent by Randolfe Rodrigues, on the grounds that the governor would be 'unfit to carry out his duties'.
Tuli Report added that “it is the eighth time that the STF has granted this man's request and members of Lula's team have already stated that Randolfe has an intimate link with members of Moraes' cabinet (STF) and personal friendship with the minister himself.”
Rocha himself posted a video, where he apologized for what had happened this Sunday, as cited by ‘The Brazilian Report’:
“What happened today in our city was simply unacceptable. Since yesterday afternoon, together with [Justice] Minister Flavio Dino, we have been monitoring all these movements that were arriving in the Federal District,” he said. “We talked between yesterday and today on several occasions, and we never believed that these demonstrations would take the proportions that they did.”
President Lula did not accept these apologies, holding Rocha responsible for what happened this Sunday.
So what happened?
As has been happening all over the country since the elections and run-off elections for the presidency, tens of thousands of people have been taking to the streets to voice their protest about the apparent fraud in the elections. At first this happened through massive road blocks, which Bolsonaro himself renounced as he called for the people to remain within the law and to peacefully protest, which led to the quick end of such road blocks. People still kept on protesting, millions of them at a time, all over the country.
This Sunday, however, the mass of protesters took over several federal buildings, including the offices of the Electoral Court (including the work spaces of de Moraes), and the Senate building and conference room, with images that were very similar to January 6 in the US, 2 years ago.
A few points are important to note.
The people protesting did not attack ‘democracy’, nor staged a coup. They demanded, in the first place, transparency.
A video shared on Rumble shows people on the roof of a federal building, with a large banner: “we want the source code!”, in a clear reference to the demand to see the source code of the election software used (which the Military report indicated was not secure and open to outside influence/attack).
Other news shows protesters taking down doors, emblems from the walls of the different buildings, etc., in images similar to the people carrying the seal of Congress out of the Capital building. Windows were smashed in, and other destruction took place, as well. Yet there is also video footage of protesters cleaning up the mess, in a clear signal that they did not approve of such destruction.
In another video, protesters detained a man who was suspected of carrying several bombs in his backpack.
Worse, is a video that shows an armed man who is smashing things in one of the federal buildings, and when confronted, is aided (!!) by members of the police! The vandal is clearly seen signaling the police officers, commanding them towards the other protesters.
And we all remember this guy:
Who has now a Brazilian soul mate:
The similarities are too obvious.
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro repeats his position on protests, in response to the events unfolding this Sunday:
"Peaceful demonstrations, in the form of the law, are part of democracy. However, depredations and invasions of public buildings as occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, escape the rule.
Throughout my mandate, I have always been within the four lines of the Constitution, respecting and defending the laws, democracy, transparency and our sacred freedom.
Furthermore, I repudiate the accusations, without evidence, attributed to me by the current chief executive of Brazil."
He clearly rejects the violence, linking it to the left, and he reminds people that he always remained within the law during his presidency, and he rejects any attempts to hold him accountable for such violence, and any accusations of being a ‘neo-fascist’ attempting to stage a violent coup.
To add to the confusion, the forces of the government were not on the same page, either. Remember, Brazil is a federal country, comprised of several states, where each governor is in charge of their own security forces, on top of a federal police force, on top of the forces of the military. So there are different groups that are commanded by different people with different allegiances. This was visible yesterday in the fact that some police officers refused to carry out orders to break up protests or to arrest protestors, or simple passed them on to others, delaying the execution of such orders. The main force used to break up the protests and the occupation seems to have been (Federal) police, with minimal military support, and at some point the military even cordoned off a section around the military headquarters, for weeks now scene of a very large protest, actively preventing the arrests of Bolsonaro protesters by the Federal District Police forces (the police has no authority on territory held by the army).
And what about the many videos of protesters opening ranks to allow soldiers to pass through without any trouble, cheering them on and applauding them? As someone remarked: how will Lula force the military to step up forcefully against the people who so clearly respect and trust the military? Perhaps just by staging events like Sunday, with the destruction and violence that came with it, to force the hand of the military commanders.
(Of note is that among the military, the former commander of the Brazilian Navy, Admiral Amir Garnier Santos, was not present at the change of command ceremony of the Brazilian armed forces, and actively states that he does not recognize Lula as President. It was the Navy that was the only branch of the military that supported Bolsonaro fully, which was insufficient for Bolsonaro to do anything else but leave the country ahead of the swearing in of Lula.)
So what is going on, here?
There are too many similarities with January 6 for comfort. Down to some of the visuals, complete with their own Shaman, but also down to the same inexplicable cases of collusion with police forces. Where people were led into the DC Capitol building, people were allowed into certain areas in Brasilia (as the accusation against Rocha makes clear), and where normal protests were expected, as has been happening for weeks now, this suddenly took a violent turn: not by all, but by a small subgroup, probably egging on others to participate, as well. At the same time, other protesters acted AGAINST the violence, cleaned up, prevented further escalation, tried to confront vandals only to be met with guns and police supporting the vandal, not the protesters trying to stop the destruction…
On a higher level, we see actions to further restrict and remove people in positions of authority who are not following the hard line of the Lula regime, demanding a complete stop of all protests and of any and all talk about fraud or ‘election denial’.
In that context, the order by De Moraes, relieving governor Ibaneis Rocha from his position for 90 days, is highly irregular, in that De Moraes received no such authority from congress to act in such manner. As Tuli Report stated, “Secretaries of some governors feel distressed and afraid after the STF decision that overthrew Ibaneis Rocha, former governor of the Federal District
They question how easy it is for the Brazilian Justice to hear the request of just one person and be able to withdraw any name that a specific group considers to be inefficient.” All that is by design, it seems. A concerted effort to intimidate any and all opposition.
Olavo de Carvalho (a confidant of Bolsonaro, and a right-wing polemicist and philosopher), already on April 12, 2021, made clear what the strategy was:
"The strategy of the STF and friends is to strangle the people until they can't take it anymore and resort to violence. Then the glorious Armed Forces will step in to crush the rebellion once and for all and create, on the corpse of the popular will, the most beautiful democratic rule of law that has been seen since the days of Mao Dzedong."
That seems to be the exact playbook that is being followed.
The people are not just being ignored in their massive protests, they are being gaslighted and accused of endangering the democracy of their country, even as they demand transparency and protection of the electoral process. The continued blocking of their voices and their leaders, the (at times illegal) arrests, all serve to increase pressure: shut up and comply, and accept the election result! Any violence, however light, is used to further incriminate the whole movement. And when all that fails, because the people protesting are actual patriots who love their country, and respect the rule of law, an ‘event’ will be doctored that shows actual violence being done to the symbols of the federal state, which then will allow a hard crackdown.
Just like January 6.
It would be no surprise to see a much harder stance in Brazil in the next few days and weeks, pointing at the violence of January 8 as justification, to mop up any remaining protest. Where the military has been very lenient and supportive, even on this past Saturday, stepping in to prevent further arrests by the police forces, the narrative being shaped of the events of January 8 might be used to force the military to comply, and to close the protests in front of the military headquarters, long a thorn in the side of the Lula camp, and something the Lula camp has tried to end, without much success, and without any support from the military itself. The military itself and the new Lula regime are not on the same page, that has been made very clear again yesterday.
As Tupi Report stated, “Using the jargon "defense of democracy" as a reason, Flávio Dino determines the use of the National Force to repress protesters in Brasília
For the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, the convening of the National Force is justified in the face of “threats conveyed against democracy”. Generally, the National Force is used in measures to guarantee the protection and sovereignty of the Republic and lawyers are accusing Dino of using the regulations for a political nature, since demonstration is an inalienable right in Brazilian democracy.”
There are signs that protesters will continue today, on Monday. We will see how this turns out, and how the different cracks in the leadership, between Lula, the judicial branch with de Moraes, and the military, will play out.
I find it incredible, how little provision there is in the laws of countries, to counter election fraud and theft, and how any complaint is so quickly rejected as ‘election denial’ or ‘fake news’, ‘misinformation’, and as such, in a complete reversal, ‘a threat against democracy’. The support given to Lula by different nations and leaders, including Biden, is telling, in that regard.
A first and clear lesson is that violence is NOT the solution, as the system offers precious little recourse to follow through on even credible allegations of fraud, and as such, any violence will be the clear and bigger threat, also offering a perfect excuse to crack down on any such protest, silencing it by force. Justified force, in response to easily proven violence!
At the same time, we see the slow mulling of the system in the US itself, with the case of Kari Lake moving forward, with ‘We the People’ waking up and taking charge of the system itself, and participating on the most local level of politics, against the party-system. The latest events in the US Congress, surrounding the election of the new Speaker, are very telling: we are being re-educated, abuse from previous times is being exposed and eradicated. The attempt by Pelosi to remove the protection that allowed a single member to bring a vote of no confidence against the speaker was a naked power grab, cementing the position of the Speaker for the full 2 year term. As the other points negotiated show, the power is brought back to the people, by forcing congress to actually do their job, in smaller bills, with sufficient time to read each before a vote, etc.
All the quick fixes we had hoped for 2 years ago did not come to fruition. On the contrary, we are being taking on a slow and painful re-education tour, where ‘we the people’ have to wake up and stand up, prepared to be able to actually take back the power. We are realizing the cost and the value of such power, and the responsibilities that come with that power. We have to take back that power, not just on the level of the presidency (if we are to give the presidency the authority to fix the system single-handedly, we concentrate a level of power in the hands of a single office that can very easily be abused!), but on every level starting at the local school boards and the local party conventions.
Watching Brazil is a very interesting exercise. They are dealing with a very similar predicament, aided even by the same players we are dealing with (Biden, the FBI and the CIA apparently were ‘aiding Brazil’ in the run-up of their elections, to help ensure they would run without any interference…). There, just as here, there are no clear mechanisms in case of blatant election theft. It is just too inconceivable that such would happen!
The massive protests in Brazil seem to have no effect, as they continue to be ignored in the media, yet yesterday we saw the Military protect the protestors.
I cannot shake the impression that the solution in both countries will be linked.
To be followed closely!
This is such a good analysis. Nobody else is putting it together like this. Thank you for illustrating these parallels for us. Excellent writing, as always.
I have not been keeping up with the recent events in Brazil, and very much appreciate your analysis and summary. The deep state marxist tentacles are evident in Brazil, as they are here, and were on Jan 6. The only solution is We The People demanding transparency and following the rule of law. In Brazil clearly, one man acting on one phony complaint gives the tyrants justification for a "crackdown" and use of censorship and dictatorial tactics against liberty. In the end, we can see that the military must and will side with freedom and the people, in Brazil, and here.