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Notes -
Surprised so few people talk about Brasil here. Their election (2nd round) is today. It looks like Lula is the slight favourite but even his supporters concede that Bolsonaro has a good shot. For those not in the know, Lula is the social democrat with Bolsonaro best described as "Trump of the Tropics".
Yet a complicating factor is that the new congress has already been elected and it was much more right-wing than expected. So Lula's room for maneuver will be significantly constrained if he happens to win.
There does seem to be a structural undercurrent at play here. A very fast-growing demographic in Brasil are the evangelical Christians, who overwhelmingly favour Bolsonaro. Traditionally, Catholicism has been the bedrock of the nation's social fabric, inherited from the Iberians. So a very fervent form of Protestantism is unquestionably a break from the past where Catholicism was viewed as intertwined with national identity. Whoever wins this presidential election will have to grapple with this changed reality in Brasil.
Incidentally, this also suggests the lazy assumption that "as America gets more diverse it will invariably get more liberal" could potentially not come to pass.
Think a lot more work is required to establish Brazil's status quo. If you're going to get a pervasive and onerous system of ethnic spoils and spend years under an openly socialist government, then occasionally having a proto-fascist assume the presidency but not do much with his platform is not exactly reassuring for those who are worried about a leftward erosion of the US's status quo.
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