Tangle - Brazil's new (old) president.

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Today, we're covering the return of Lula. We also have a reader question about how to prepare for the midterms.You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here (paywall), and today’s “Have a nice day” story here.Today’s clickables: Quick hits (1:08), Today’s story (2:04), Right’s take (11:32), Left’s take (7:12), Isaac’s take (16:18), Listener question (19:58), Under the Radar (21:34), Numbers (22:18), Have a nice day (23:02)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about the elections in Brazil. I know this was a story that really broke last week, but we got a lot of reader feedback from people who are interested in our breakdown of what happened there. So despite the fact we have some big elections

here in the US tomorrow, obviously, which we will preview tomorrow morning, we wanted to give this some coverage today before it got way too old to cover. So with that, we'll get started with our quick hits. First up, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears poised to return to power after his conservative coalition won a majority in Israel's parliament. Number two, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton is telling donors he does not plan to run for president in 2024. Number three, Twitter is rolling out Twitter Blue, a service that requires users to pay $7.99 per month for a blue verification checkmark. Separately, the company is now asking some fired workers to return to the office. Number four, Sean Diddy Combs has acquired cannabis companies in New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois for an estimated $185 billion. Number five, two people died and dozens were hurt after tornadoes ripped through northeastern Texas and southern Oklahoma over the weekend. It is one of the biggest countries in the world by population and voting is compulsory.

When Brazilians go to the polls, it's a lot of people. As former President Lula da Silva cast his vote this morning, he did so in the hope the majority of Brazilians would share his vision. It seems they did. The president's office may have conceded defeat, The majority of Brazilians would share his vision. It seems they did. The president's office may have conceded defeat, but many of Jair Bolsonaro's millions of supporters have not. They took to the streets of Sao Paulo in their thousands.

After a bitter campaign between two polarizing figures, there is work ahead. Last week, former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva defeated incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in a very tight election. Lula, as he is often referred, managed to edge Bolsonaro with 50.9% of the vote to Bolsonaro's 49.1%, winning by a little more than 2 million votes the closest election in Brazil's history. Bolsonaro became the first president in Brazil to fail to win re-election in the 25 years since a constitutional amendment first made re-election possible. Last week, de Silva's final tally came after Bolsonaro outperformed polls in the first round of voting, where de Silva won 48% of the vote to Bolsonaro's 43%. When neither candidate got 50% of the vote, they had to do it all over again in a runoff election.

De Silva, 77, was first elected president of Brazil 20 years ago and last served from 2003 to 2010. His return to office is the culmination of a remarkable political comeback after being imprisoned for corruption in 2018. While De Silva is often described as a leftist politician, he has vowed during his campaign to work with centrist and moderate parties during his new tenure. Bolsonaro, a nationalist and right-wing president, will exit office after four years. His presidency was marred by mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic in which Brazil's economy cratered and nearly 700,000 Brazilians died. He oversaw the worst run of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years. However, he won over many Brazilians by defending conservative values in the country and positioning himself as a bulwark against the left-wing politics of the past. Heading into the election, he warned

voters that the race may be derailed by election fraud. De Silva, meanwhile, previously oversaw a massive social welfare program that elevated tens of millions of Brazilians to the middle class. a massive social welfare program that elevated tens of millions of Brazilians to the middle class. When he left office in 2010, he had an 80% approval rating. However, his reputation was tarnished after being arrested in 2018 and imprisoned for 580 days over corruption and money laundering conviction. His party, the Workers' Party, was caught in a cash-for-votes scandal while De Silva and numerous other Latin American politicians were caught up in a scheme where large companies were paying off politicians in exchange for government projects. Initially, those charges would have prevented Lula from running for office again. However, in 2019, the journalist Glenn Greenwald published leaked documents that showed a judge overseeing

the case was passing on investigative leads and advice to prosecutors. Some began describing Da Silva as a political prisoner, and Brazil's top court eventually nullified those charges, was passing on investigative leads and advice to prosecutors. Some began describing de Silva as a political prisoner, and Brazil's top court eventually nullified those charges, citing bias of the judge. That ruling allowed de Silva to run for president for the sixth time. While campaigning this year, de Silva once again pledged to focus on the poor, saying he would raise the minimum wage and increase spending on poverty. While nationalist sentiment is ascending in Europe and other parts of the world, de Silva's victory is symbolic of a much different reality in Latin America. With recent leftist victories in Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, and Peru, every major

economy in Latin America will now be led by a leftist government when de Silva takes office on January 1st. While de Silva prevailed in the election, challenges remain in governance. While de Silva prevailed in the election, challenges remain in governance. Scores of Bolsonaro allies won races in Congress across the country, and Brazil is deeply divided. China, one of Brazil's biggest trading partners, is also undergoing an economic slowdown. Some 33 million Brazilians of 215 million are living in poverty. De Silva is going to have to win over many opponents in order to implement key parts of his agenda, like eliminating the income tax for anyone earning less than $950 a month and increasing taxes on the rich. Today, we're going to take a look at some reactions to his victory from

the left is saying. The left is hopeful about Lula's return, but worried about what it might mean for the war in Ukraine. Most express relief Bolsonaro is gone. Some praise Brazil for a peaceful transfer of power despite Bolsonaro's initial silence. In CNN, Eric Weirson said Brazil is bidding farewell to the Trump of the tropics. On one hand, Lula's victory marked a sharp rebuke of Bolsonaro's irreverent and oftentimes controversial governing style, which earned him the derisive moniker as the Trump of the tropics. Not only was Bolsonaro in fact endorsed by former U.S. President Donald Trump, but like Trump, he was widely criticized for his handling of the coronavirus, which resulted in nearly 700,000 deaths in the country, according to the World Health Organization. Moreover, Bolsonaro's aggressive anti-LGBT agenda, decidedly anti-government policies, and authoritarian tendencies made him something of a pariah in the international media, Weerson said.

tendencies made him something of a pariah in the international media, Weerson said. The bad news is that now, come January 1st, when Lula is sworn in for his third term as president, he will have to find a way to govern a country that is deeply divided and highly mistrustful of the other side, Weerson said. Unlike his past victories, where Lula came into office with a clear mandate, winning over 60% of the votes in both 2002 and 2006, this time, not only did Lula eke out the slimmest of victories, but he will face a Congress that is still very much aligned with Bolsonaro. Moreover, with the downed-out results of Sunday's runoff elections for governorships across the country, it's clear that allies of Bolsonaro will be in power in 14 of Brazil's 27 states,

including the most economically important states. In the Washington Post, Mark Margolis said this was a win for the center. Rather than Kareem left to counter Bolsonaro's extremism, Lula yanked his campaign hard toward the middle, Margolis said. The result was an unlikely coalition that gathered under a single tent establishment economists, disillusioned centrists, and the hard left. Lula named as his running mate former Sao Paulo governor Geraldo Ackerman, a center-right social democrat. He reeled in Simone Tibet, a former presidential hopeful from the conservative Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, who had long criticized Lula for the corruption that flourished during about 14 years of Workers'

Party governments. Lula's return will not guarantee governability or the end of political loathing and conflict, he added. The array of political forces he has coalesced will prove challenging to hold together, much less lead. Governing Brazil calls for power sharing, which is too often a fast pass to corruption. It also demands fiscal sobriety, a challenge in a country recovering from the pandemic where legislators are practiced in holding presidents to ransom. Leftist partisans can rightly celebrate their unprecedented democratic coalition as a firewall against right-wing extremism. Yet to hold that compact together, Lula will need to summon all his pragmatism and political acumen, both conspicuously absent in Bolsonaro's Brazil.

In MSNBC, Julio Ricardo Varela said that despite the warnings of Bolsonaro refusing to accept a loss, Brazil's democracy looks more stable than America's. However, Bolsonaro's agreeing to a peaceful transfer of power hasn't stopped noted American Stop the Steal election deniers from calling for a military coup in Brazil to protect Bolsonaro, Varela said. On Sunday, once it was clear that Bolsonaro would not catch up to Lula's lead, far-right election denier Ali Alexander was urging the brothers of Brazil to take to the streets with a military standby, noting on Truth Social, with no evidence at all, that Joe Biden's team is currently stealing the Brazilian election for socialist Lula.

Literally a coup, Alexander said. Alexander was demanding an audit of the vote, a baseless trope being regurgitated by the likes of right-wingers Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. Like an even more twisted statement of manifest destiny, the United States has had a shameful history of bulldozing through the political wishes of its southern neighbors, while all the time boasting that it believes in democracy and that democracy here is better than democracy anywhere else, Varel added. anywhere else, Varel added. Meddling in Latin America's political affairs and sometimes propping up dictators while purporting to be a lover of democracy has always been an obvious American hypocrisy. But there is a particular irony here in watching American conservatives, who used to boast that America's chief export is democracy, which brings us to what the right is saying.

Many on the right say Brazil could be in trouble and worry about the left-wing takeover of Latin America. Some argue that Bolsonaro got results but failed to sell them to the public. Others criticize the Biden administration and Brazil's government for silencing questions about the election. The Wall Street Journal said Brazil is gambling again on a leftward turn. Mr. de Silva, who served two presidential terms from 2003 to 2010, won with his appeals to the poor despite his conviction for corruption, the board said. Before his Workers' Party ceded power in 2016, it orchestrated the largest corruption scheme in Latin American history, using the National

Development Bank, the state-owned oil company, Congress, and private contractors. The money machine was designed to entrench his party in power. Mr. Da Silva and his accomplices were caught only because prosecutors found a money trail, and an honest judge allowed them to follow it, a minor miracle given Brazilian history. Lula's 2017 corruption conviction was overturned on a technicality, but he was never exonerated. The pandemic made change harder, but Bolsonaro's government achieved significant deregulation and fiscal reform. He spent liberally to sustain businesses and households during peak COVID-19, but he later cut spending by pairing credit subsidies to agriculture and industry, slowing the growth of social assistance and reducing government payrolls, it said. Fiscal restraint took pressure off the central bank,

and inflation has been coming down. At about 7%, it's now lower than in the U.S. Mr. Bolsonaro had a good economic story, but he struggled to tell it against the media and elites who disliked his social conservatism and portrayed him as a threat to democracy. His shoot-from-the-lip rhetoric didn't help and was especially unpopular with women. While Amazon deforestation continued in his presidency, its pace was faster in Lula's first four-year term. Yet, Mr. Bolsonaro was tagged as an enemy of the rainforest. In the Washington Examiner, Lawrence J. Haas said Lula could pose some serious challenges for the United States. Lula's victory will nourish a growing

challenge for the U.S., Haas wrote. It means that the region's seven largest countries now all have leftist governments. Washington will not be able to navigate regional politics through its traditional strategy of trying to isolate far-left regimes. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. This US challenge, moreover, comes as China, Russia, and Iran, a growing axis of anti-American

activity, are increasing their economic, military, and diplomatic influence across the region. Lula's victory could further nourish China's regional influence since he likely will be more enthused about Chinese-Brazilian ties than was Bolsonaro. Russia, too, is working more closely with authoritarian governments in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. Once upon a time, U.S. policy towards Central and South America focused heavily on isolating the far left, whether the Castro regime in Cuba for decades, Nicaragua's Sandinistas in the 1980s, or the autocrats in Venezuela more recently. With Lula's victory, however, Washington faces a growing risk of its own hemispheric isolation, he said. Driven by the economic distress imposed

by COVID-19, voters across South America have taken a consistently leftist turn in recent years. To be sure, Lula's victory gives Washington and Brasilia opportunities for cooperation, particularly on environmental issues, since he supports strong action to combat climate change and almost certainly will reverse Bolsonaro's policies enabling deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. Still, Lula's victory will further complicate Washington's approach to the region. On Fox News, Tucker Carlson said there are two reasons you should care about what is happening in Brazil. The first is that the result of this election will determine the extent of China's influence in the Western Hemisphere, he said. If Bolsonaro is determined the loser and de Silva does become the president of Brazil, that means that left-wing

governments loyal to China outside of our sphere of influence will control all of South America. Brazil was the last holdout, also the biggest and will control all of South America. Brazil was the last holdout, also the biggest and most significant country in South America. Bolsonaro alone in South America stood in the way of total Chinese hegemony there. It's our hemisphere. The second reason you should be paying attention to this is that the crackdown on free speech in the wake of Brazil's contested election is a result of policies from our country, Carlson said. The Biden administration has already announced that Bolsonaro lost and then threatened Bolsonaro with consequences if he tried to contest the results of the election in his country. The Biden State Department put out a statement

saying that Bolsonaro's defeat reinforces trust in democratic institutions. Really? This is an election that is contested. The demonstrations in the streets prove that. That has not been audited. That apparently cannot be audited by fiat and that you're not allowed to talk about. How does that restore your faith in institutions? No, only one thing restores your faith in institutions, and that's transparency. Alright, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So whenever there are major political changes in a country that the U.S. operates closely with, there are kind of a few framing thoughts I like to consider. How does this political leader view

the U.S.? How will their policies immediately impact us? How does this leader work with U.S. allies and adversaries, and will their rise help or hurt us? How does this leader work with U.S. allies and adversaries, and will their rise help or hurt us? And what kind of imminent potential political issues in the U.S. will be impacted by these changes? Notably absent from this framing is what this means for Brazil, and its people, of course, which is intentional. My opining here about what de Silva's victory will mean for Brazilians or how they should feel about it would be an act of hubris too great

even for someone who shares their opinion publicly on the news five days a week. I don't know or understand Brazil's domestic politics nearly well enough to take a position there, and there are plenty of other writers more qualified than I am to share those thoughts. What I can share are some reactions on how Lula's return relates specifically to the U.S. So, the good. For starters, the transfer of power is happening peacefully and with little upset. Why does this matter? Because many right-wing commentators here in the U.S. have been rattling the cages on purported fraud, calling on Brazilians to act, and because this election is a reminder of how to navigate those allegations. There were

5 million votes that were purposely left blank or spoiled by voters in this election, according to reports on the ground, so there are naturally going to be a lot of questions. But so far, there is little evidence that I've seen of any impropriety. In the same vein, it's impossible to say for sure why Bolsonaro is not challenging the results as some expected he might. But the obvious hypothesis is that he is isolated. His allies are not rallying around calls to upend the democratic process. They are simply preparing to fight de Silva's presidency via democratic norms. No matter how you feel about de Silva, that is good news for democracy.

This is also good for the climate fight. De Silva has been steadfast in his support for protecting the Amazon rainforest, which, believe it or not, is crucial not just to Brazil's ecosystem but also the planet's. This is not a fight over how sustainable electric vehicles are or how much greenhouse gas emissions a country should have. It's simpler than that. The Amazon is like a carbon sink for the planet, absorbing heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing that carbon in biomass. Along with preserving its millions of unique species, simply protecting it from deforestation will benefit all of us in the long term. So, that's the good news. The bad, well, de Silva's last term oversaw widespread corruption throughout Brazil. Whether he was directly

involved or not, and the degrees of his culpability, is still debated in some circles. What is not debatable is that when he was president, corruption thrived. Corruption breeds distrust from the people, and distrust breeds unrest. Unrest in Brazil would be bad for Latin America and bad for us. In those simple crude terms, de Silva is a risky president. It's also true that in the new world alignment we are witnessing, it's likely that Lula will draw closer to Russia, China, and Iran. He has long said he viewed Zelensky as responsible as Putin for the

war in Ukraine, and plenty of columnists view Lula's victory as great news for Putin. Campaigning in wartime is different from leading, so we'll see what Lula actually does and what influence he has, but there's no doubt he could join a growing list of countries that stand in opposition to the U.S. position on the war. His election means China's influence in Latin America is almost certain to grow too, which could threaten certain interests the U.S. has, especially when it comes to competition for the ever more valuable lithium needed to power batteries. All told, this is a decidedly mixed bag. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Rob in Austin, Texas. Rob said, is there any place you recommend to get a relatively unbiased view of candidates on my 2022 midterm ballot? I started to fill out my ballot in advance,

but it's a lot of effort to Google 50 plus people for smaller positions that I haven't heard about. So Rob, I get this question a lot, and the truth is that there are not a ton of great unbiased resources out there like this, despite such a massive demand for them. I think part of the reason it's so hard to find in one place is that there are just so many candidates and races. For instance, there are 435 representatives in the House up for election every two years, which implies at least 870 candidates and usually more when you take into account third-party candidates and others. Then there are the governor's races, state legislature races, local city races, and more. So one website would have to host tens of

thousands of candidate profiles in an unbiased manner, all in one spot. It's a huge task. Still, there are some good resources out there. For starters, I'd check your local papers. Local news outlets do an admirable job keeping you appraised of what each candidate stands for and how they may impact your day-to-day life. Candidates often give interviews to local papers too. Then there are apps and websites like Ballotpedia, Activote, and On the Issues, all of which try to pool together information about specific candidates and ballot initiatives. My advice? Put aside an hour today or early tomorrow and just do the digging if you haven't yet. It isn't easy, but a little legwork is definitely worth it.

All right, that is it for our reader question today, which brings us to our under-the-radar section. President Biden's top security advisor, Jake Sullivan, has been engaged in confidential conversations with top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the last few months. The Wall Street Journal is citing U.S. and allied officials who say the previously undisclosed talks have been taking place in an effort to reduce the risk of a broader conflict in Europe and ensure that Moscow does not use nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. The White House has not acknowledged any communications between Sullivan and senior Russian officials since March, and both sides have declined to confirm or deny the report. The Wall Street Journal has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description.

All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of days until election day is one. We will obviously be covering this tomorrow. The number of early votes cast as of Monday morning was 40,786,501. The percentage of registered voters who said they believe the federal government is controlled by a secret cabal is 44%. The percentage of Democrats who said they believe that is 37%. The percentage of Republicans who said they believe that is 53%. The number of times Republicans win the Senate in 538's 40,000 simulations of the 2022 midterms is now 54 and 100. now 54 in 100. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day section. 415 million people have been lifted out of poverty in India over the last 15 years, according to the United Nations.

The incidence of poverty dropped from 55.1% in 2005 to 2006 to 16.4% in 2019 to 2021, a new report says, indicating one of the most remarkable drops in poverty ever recorded. While the effects of COVID-19 on poverty cannot yet be calculated, analysts are hopeful much of the progress will remain. India focused on four poverty reduction programs to achieve its goal. Sustainable livelihood programs through natural resources like farming, girls' education, rural development, and better funding for civil society development programs. The Economic Times has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description.

All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. I am jumping around on the road this week. We've got a little game going on to see if you can guess where I am in today's newsletter if you want to check that out. I will be back here tomorrow, election day, big day. We'll do our final midterm preview breakdown with some thoughts from both sides, and then obviously lots of midterm coverage the rest of this week. So stay tuned, spread the word about Tangle, and we'll be right back here tomorrow. Same time. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and produced by Trevor Eichhorn.

Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Sean Brady, and Bailey Saul. Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who designed our logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our website at www.readtangle.com. We'll see you next time. stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he

inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.