Brazil’s Coming Democratic Collapse – Ignoring Venezuela’s Actual Collapse Next Door

A quite wondrous piece of political partisanship in this report from Brazil concerning Bolsonaro’s inauguration as President – this presages the collapse of democracy apparently. Of course, to expect anyone to the right of Jimmy Carter to gain a reasonable hearing at Hufington Post is to engage in isometric exercise, a great deal of effort which gets you nowhere. Still, the size of the ladle they’re using to lash it on is pretty big:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Brazil Is About To Show The World How A Modern Democracy Collapses[/perfectpullquote]

Bloke fights fair election, gets elected, this shows the collapse of democracy? Hmm:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is a threat to Brazilian democracy — and a model for authoritarianism that leaders around the world will follow.[/perfectpullquote]

Entirely bloodcurdling stuff and undoubtedly here are scary monsters under the bed too.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]And while he has pitched his surge to power as the result of a “populist” revolt, his base of support mirrors that of the old coup masters: wealthy financial elites, segments of the population willing to trade the rights and lives of the poor and marginalized for their own safety and economic prosperity, and traditional parties and politicians who refuse to acknowledge their own roles in creating the monster before folding themselves into his arms.[/perfectpullquote]

Well, quite so.

The actual accusations are that he’s a populist, used to be an Army Captain and, well, other than that it appears they just don’t like him.

The thing is, if we wanted to see what a populist ex-army guy might do to a country we’ve only got to look one north. Chavez was indeed army, he even led an actual – although failed – coup against the duly elected government. He was most certainly a populist too. We can all see the effects of this as well, the country is failing – has failed really – as a country, certainly the economy’s dead and so is democracy.

It’s not difficult to see why the different treatment of course. Bolsonaro is a right wing populist, Hugo was a left wing one. Very different, of course it is. Well, at Huffington Post it is, yes.