Brazil's presidential election between incumbent Jair Bolsonaro who
is known as the Trump of the tropics and Lula da Silva will go to a second round.
Because unfortunately Lula da Silva, the leftist candidate,
did not receive a majority of the votes,
meaning more than 50% in order to avoid a second round.
Now, while some progressives in Brazil are disappointed by this
Lula da Silva is just undeterred, defiant, and excited to continue
campaigning to basically win this election and I certainly hope he does.
Here are the percentages, with more than 99.5% of votes counted
the leftist veteran Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, had secured 48.3% of the vote,
not enough to avoid the October 30th runoff with rival Jair Bolsonaro.
My understanding is they don't call it a runoff, they call it a second round, but
you guys get the picture, in the US we would call it a runoff.
Nonetheless, Bolsonaro has significantly outperformed
pollster's predictions and received 43.3%.
Now, the polls did indicate that Lula da Silva had a massive lead over Bolsonaro.
I think the reason why you see some disappointment among progressives
in Brazil is that they did not expect a second round to need to happen.
And leading up to the election, you have the Trump of the tropics Jair Bolsonaro,
essentially spouting the same election fraud lies that Trump had
spewed prior to the 2020 presidential election.
He had also implied that he wouldn't step down or accept defeat if he lost
the election, essentially setting up a similar scenario that we have
been experiencing here in the United States with Trump refusing to concede.
But what I will say is, after the election over the weekend showing
that there would need to be a second round, and
that the pollsters overestimated the support for Lula da Silva.
Jair Bolsonaro, shockingly not questioning whether there was election fraud [LAUGH]
in this presidential election John.
>> Tthat is funny. But I've seen a couple of statements from
him that implied that there was still fraud actually.
I mean, one would think it's impossible to maintain that fiction.
Not only when you haven't been knocked out, so you have another chance.
So there's not as much of an incentive to imply that the entire thing was fake,
but also the fact that you did better than the polls indicated.
Now, of course, they're gonna say that that's proof that the polls were lies, but
that is proof that the electoral system is secure.
The fact that he did even better.
And if you were to ask them, why are all the polls lies?
Because that's what he says in the same way that Trump and
Republicans say that here, that all the polls are lies despite the fact that
they're conducted by many different organizations independently.
They're all lies, why?
Well, it's to maintain this fiction that he has no support so
that they can steal the election and it'll look like it makes sense?
So why didn't they steal the election then,
why didn't the da Silva get 55% of the vote, why?
They don't have any answer?
How is it exactly that they're doing all this coordination, and how is it exactly
that the challenger is able to rig the vote in all of these disparate counties
rather than the president who would theoretically have more capacity.
None of this makes any sense.
And it doesn't matter if it's in Brazil or if it's in the US, if it's in Russia,
the arguments are all the same.
They're all nonsensical except in that they're designed to appeal to people
who have a victim complex, when you train your supporters to believe
that the other side are the absolute worst, they'll do nothing to not lose.
There's nothing that they won't do to not lose.
Then you'll believe anything.
You don't have to make rational arguments.
And so that's we're seeing.
But bear in mind he's going to continue to assert that you can't trust
the vote even if it allowed him into the second round, because he needs to keep
the option of saying it, just in case in the second round so if it does win.
>> Right, and look Lula da Silva does have a significant lead over Bolsonaro.
So the chances of him winning the presidential election,
winning the second round, pretty high chances, right?
And Lula knows that, which is why he remains defiant.
He didn't get disappointed or at least didn't show that he was disappointed.
He said, following the results of the election, quote,
the struggle continues until our final victory.
We are going to win these elections.
This for us is simply extra time.
I mean, the man is incredible, not only due to the pot policies that he had
implemented when he was the leader of Brazil,
he lifted tens of millions of Brazilians out of poverty.
He was doing really well in the previous presidential election.
And the reason why he didn't win is because he was made a political
prisoner by Bolsonaro and the judge who was working with Bolsonaro,
to essentially throw Lula da Silva in prison for
these like Trumped up nonsense corruption allegations.
That was thrown out eventually, which is why he was able to run in this election.
But when he was casting his ballot, when Lula was, he made a point about that,
about how good it felt to be able to vote because in the previous election,
he didn't have the ability to,
he was thrown in prison because he was made a political prisoner.
So it would clear the way for Bolsonaro to be the leader.
But I wanna go back to a quick point you made John,
I think it's an important one about this conditioning of victimhood,
right, conditioning people to see themselves as victims when they're not.
It is amazing how well that works, how easy it is to propagandize people into
thinking that they're somehow being screwed over,
there somehow victims because of their political ideology.
A good example is, I mean, conservatives here in the United States constantly
talking about how they're censored, how leftists won't have conversations with
them, how they won't be debated because we're always running away from them.
They will make that argument, like, as they're on progressive or leftist shows,
it's like, it's amazing, and there's no stop in that line of thinking,
even as there's a contradiction slapping them in the face, you know?
>> Yeah, yeah, no, 100%.
And for some it's to train them to think of themselves as victims when they're not,
like, think middle class or wealthy Republicans that believe that them
being white is the worst handicap ever, and that's absolute nonsense.
And then there's taking people who are actually victims of a variety
of different things, very poor conservatives potentially, and
convincing them that they're a different sort of victim,
that it's not their economic problems really, that need to be fixed.
It's something else, something that doesn't challenge the economic status quo.
What's been interesting about the election in Brazil, because I've been following
a great episode of John Oliver's show breaking it down last week,
I've been tracking some of what Bolsonaro has been saying and everything.
And all too often I feel like for a very long time people are not upfront about
their lack of expertise about the politics of different countries,
because different countries are different, different political histories,
different political cultures.
I'm not an expert on Brazil.
I'm simply not.
And yeah, I've noticed that it seems to matter less these days.
If you listen to Bolsonaro, if you see his speeches, it sounds exactly like what
you could say Trump or you could say Desantis or Tucker Carlson are saying.
It's the same exact Boogeyman,
and honestly Vladimir Putin had his big speech just a few days ago,
he was talking about literal Satanism and the transgender community and everything.
In the same way that like fast food franchises have made every town in
America kind of the same, boneheaded primal pathetic conservatism,
has made the politics of so
many countries seemingly the same on the surface, at the very least.
>> No, absolutely.
And the reason why they go to their endless talking points about
transgender people because they want any distraction,
any scapegoat for the pain and suffering they cause by colluding
with corporate interest to essentially rob their own constituents.
And it's disgusting because at the end of the day, everyone gets screwed.
The only people who come out winning are the corrupt politicians and
the corporations they serve, and the communities they target get demonized,
harassed, targeted, and the rest of the population who gets fooled into
believing these narratives get robbed.
It's so wrong.
And the other thing I wanted to just quickly mention is,
this is such a critical election, because it's not just about Brazil,
it's about what Bolsonaro is doing to the community there.
What Bolsonaro has done to the Amazon with the endless logging that's
been taking place, just destroying the Amazon rainforest.
And he seems to have absolutely no regard for democracy.
And I think that was already evident in what he did to his political opponent in
the previous presidential election.
But we'll keep an eye on this.
As I mentioned, the second round will take place October 30th and
I really do hope that Lula da Silva keeps up with this momentum.
He's an incredibly inspiring person, and this would be incredible news.
Lula winning would be just a massive win for not not just Brazil, but
for progressives and leftists across the globe.