The scenes of Bolsonaristas invading the headquarters of the Three Powers of the Republic, in Brasília, on Sunday (8), are disconcertingly reminiscent of what happened in the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 —and there are also deeper connections between the two events.
“The whole thing stinks,” said a guest on Steve Bannon’s podcast, a former strategist for former US leader Donald Trump, the day after the first round of elections in Brazil last October.
The presidential race had gone into the second round, and the final result was nowhere near known. But Bannon spread unfounded rumors about voter fraud, as he had for weeks.
In his podcast and social media posts, he and his guests fueled allegations of a “stolen election”. Bannon also promoted the hashtag #BrazilianSpring (“Brazilian Spring”, a reference to the Arab Spring, a wave of protests against historic dictatorships in countries in the Middle East and North Africa) —and continued to incite opposition even after the former president himself Jair Bolsonaro (PL) seemed to accept the results of the election, which elected PT Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bannon, ideologue of the populist radical new right, was just one of several key Trump allies who have adopted the same strategy used to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election in the United States. And, as happened in Washington on January 6, 2021, these false reports and unsubstantiated rumors helped spur a mob to break windows and storm government buildings in an attempt to further their cause.
‘Do whatever is necessary!’
The day before the Capitol stormed, Bannon told his listeners, “The thing is going to catch fire tomorrow.” He was sentenced to four months in prison for refusing to comply with an order to testify before a congressional committee that investigated the attack, but is free pending appeal.
Like other Trump aides who have spread rumors of fraud, Bannon showed no consternation on Sunday, even as images emerged of widespread destruction in Brasilia.
“Lula stole the election… Brazilians know it,” he wrote repeatedly on the Gettr social network. And he called the people who stormed the buildings “freedom fighters”. Ali Alexander, an activist who emerged after the 2020 election as one of the leaders of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement, roused the crowd, writing “Do whatever it takes!” and claiming to have contacts in Brazil.
Bolsonaro supporters protested online about an existential crisis and alleged “communist domination” — the exact same kind of rhetoric that drove protesters in Washington two years ago.
Cast doubt on the electoral system
A November meeting between the former president and one of Bolsonaro’s sons at Trump’s Florida resort exposed the ties between the former president and the Trump movement. During that trip, Eduardo Bolsonaro also spoke with Bannon and Jason Miller, a former Trump adviser, according to reports published by The Washington Post and other media.
As in the US in 2020, election deniers focused their attention on voting mechanisms. In Brazil, they cast suspicion on electronic voting machines. A sign displayed by protesters on Sunday declared in Portuguese and English: “We want the source code” — a reference to rumors that the electronic voting machines were programmed or hacked to harm Bolsonaro.
Several prominent Brazilian Twitter accounts that spread election-denial rumors were reinstated after Elon Musk bought the platform, according to an analysis by the BBC. The accounts had previously been banned.
Musk himself suggested that some of Twitter’s own employees in Brazil were “heavily politically biased”, without providing details or evidence. Some of Trump’s US opponents were quick to blame the former president and his aides for encouraging unrest in Brazil.
On Twitter, Jamie Raskin, a member of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives and a member of the committee that investigated the invasion of the Capitol, called the Brazilian protesters “fascists who modeled themselves on the rioters of Trump on January 6th”.
The BBC has reached out to Bannon and Alexander for comment.
Reported by the BBC Disinformation Team. The text was originally published here.
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