Lula wins election after final votes tallied
reuters.com
reuters.com
It could be argued that the Netflix catalog nowadays is akin to some kind of torture.
What's the point of having all that money and power if you can't actually do the things you want?
The most "sensible" application would be for betting markets I thought.
a) Undermines trust or
b) Creates a more fertile ground to undermine trust
The github link in the article does not work
It was there last night. Now I get a 404.
It usually kicks in when 10-20 % of the votes have been counted and switches back to raw results near the 90% mark.
Didn't find an exact date when they started using it; an article says "dates back to 1960s" but it's definitely been a staple in 2000s.
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/elections/100000009683078/h...
It always surprises me that USA, the self-appointed bastion of democracy worldwide, has such tortuous and malleable elections; and that no serious academic discussion occurs despite the endemic flaws. Even these days, the PREP's Wikipedia page lacks an English translation.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programa_de_Resultados_Elector...
It can be better than the alternatives and still not good.
Lula served two terms from 2002-2010, and came back in 2022 (now to serve until 2030, if he lives until then).
I do think term limits are good, but nonconsecutive 16 years is actually an ok limit IMHO. Maybe not the one I'd prefer for my government, but not necessarily objectively bad for democracy.
Still, as you said, this context is important. Lula left in 2010 and came back in 2022 after having been arrested, freed, and then defeating Jair Bolsonaro, who was the current president and a fierce rival.
That said, I think reelections are actually more damaging in the legislative (and it is not uncommon to have congressmen and senators for 20, 30 years straight).
Long-term politicians result in "behind the scenes" doing the real work of running things.
Wait a minute ...
Australia has no term limits and has famously had the longest serving prime minister (12 years) followed by extremely short terms. All seemed to represent the general will of the population.
I’m not a political junkie but that makes sense to me. The critters who get your vote are just part of the system that runs the place.
You might say he introduced a kind of populism, where politicians only care about the next election round and their reputation, to the cost of important decision-making and long-term thinking. Unfortunately this is kind of a working strategy, a weakness of democracy, where the current centre-right government is struggling with all the aggravated problems not dealt with in the past, and the voters think "well, perhaps we have to vote VVD again where these problems didn't exist", or vote more right-wing by populism that makes immigration the cause of all problems.
Today, it’s always either the fault of the other party (who never had a real chance of making big changes), the rich (but if you tax them too much they leave and you’re left with no economy, see France), or the foreigners.
As stated, this is merely a truism, and you have not justified this belief. Would you care to? It seems very irrational to me. High office is one of the most difficult and most impactful jobs in the world. It's easy to do a terrible job and screw everyone over while enriching yourself, of course, but extremely challenging to do a good job. You are responsible for the fate of tens or hundreds of millions of people, and must exercise incredible judgment on the breadth of every macro problem society faces while simultaneously maneuvering both internal support and foreign relations. Why would we not want to make this most important of all jobs a job where people can actually grow into the role and demonstrate expertise in it? You are strictly only eliminating the electorate's options. There is already a corrective mechanism for voters to evict someone doing a bad job [whether they choose to exercise it is another matter, but that's literally democracy in action], but there should be no mechanism to sustain a job well done?
Also... too long in power makes it easier to dismantle the democratic process.
The entire American system of checks and balances is not designed to get optimal leadership, it is designed to limit damage from bad leadership.
Then elect someone else next time. This, however, is a criticism of democracy more than it is a justification for term limits.
> The entire American system of checks and balances is not designed to get optimal leadership, it is designed to limit damage from bad leadership.
How's that working out for you? You got Trump and Biden as a direct result of term limits. The way I see it, your system has selected for the maximally damaging bad leadership possible.
The US only enacted term limits in 1951. Before that time, only two presidents had attempted to seek third terms (another two attempted but failed to secure even a nomination by a political party), and only one was successful.
And, quite frankly, the only president since the 22nd amendment who I could see wanting to run for a third term is Trump, who does seem to be campaigning for one anyways despite being constitutionally barred from it.
> No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
The 'obvious loophole' is that the text doesn't constrain the number of terms anyone can serve, but instead constrains the number of times someone can be elected as president, so if you run as vice president for someone who agrees to immediately resign to let you be president, you technically don't run afoul of the rule.
(The more likely loophole, following from Trump v Colorado, is that nobody is actually allowed to declare somebody ineligible for president, so the constitution's strictures are meaningless in practice. It truly is a disgusting SCOTUS decision.)
Well how's that working out? There's a reason the rest of the developed democratic world hasn't adopted a strong executive.
Worked out very well for the American system till recently.
Funnily enough, a lot of people who voted for Flávio only did it because they wanted a change from Lula.
Beyond the obvious differences between campaigning and actually leading effectively, there is the very obvious looming spectre of dictatorship. So many dictatorships in the our modern history have started off with promising leaders affecting real change. That is, until they decide they like power a bit too much and start dismantling the democratic machinery that they used to take power in the first place.
You also assert that term limits are bad because it doesn’t allow time for people to grow into the role and demonstrate expertise in it. To that I say: there are other ways to lead and grow and develop expertise than the most powerful political office in any country.
I mean, we have an obvious and irrefutable real life example of what can happen without term limits. Just look at the US senate, the house and the Supreme Court. All of the political bodies are or have been littered without of touch career politicians who spend all their time ensuring no one else can challenge them, enriching themselves and their top supporters.
Even with Germany it turned out that Angela Merkel did grave mistakes and Germans were able to find out about those only after she left office. Being continually in office gives you the ability to hide your trials. The longer you stay the easier it is for you to get elected.
That’s why it is very important to have a time limit in power.
If it was not clear, I am not stating that anyone who is in office is automatically the most competent. However, the entire point of a democracy is that you have the option to fire bad candidates. And yet, with term limits, when you do get a competent candidate in office, you do not have the option to keep them in office.
Being the chief executive in a system like brazil's results in a lot of power, for several perfectly good reasons, but it does mean you have to build in safe guards against that power growing.
Regular elections are good, but not sufficient, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate.
Term limits are not a solution either, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate. Clearly there is a need to check power, but perhaps the mechanisms that check power should not also ensure you will never have a truly excellent leader && increase instability from flipflopping policies && give more opportunities for people who will abuse power to take office and ignore the term limits because that's what people who abuse power do. A term limit is only effective against a mildly bad candidate who is not truly willing to abuse their power, because if they are willing to abuse their power they can just ignore it. In that way, you've created a system that caps upside but leaves downside uncapped in practice.
Democracies shouldn't have a "leader", they should have functional governments and strong oppositions. Focusing on a single person never ends well.
The fall of that system then came about when politically ambitious characters started developing more personal and long-term relations with their troops.
I'd say that's an argument for term limits: you want them to get good but not set roots permanently.
What it loses in efficiency, it gains in avoiding centralization, cult of personality, and encouraging standardization.
"Rome's tradition of having to serve in 'lower offices' before the higher ones meant that when aristocrats inevitably ended up in charge of entire armies they had some level of practical experience and learnings to draw on while commanding".
But yes, much is made of Rome's redundancy in terms of military strength and there's a lot of states during that period that had A King who did everything and then died in a battle and then everything collapsed.
The extreme case which you want to avoid is "politicians" (dictators) desperately clinging to power, because they did things that would get them killed if they ever lost their power, which is a vicious cycle.
I like the swiss model more where one party never gets full power, even if it means societal changes take more time to happen[1], it seems less risky to me as there is never one power grab whose decision can influence the next election by stuff like redistricting, puting clearly leaning judges to federal court, etc.
[1] famous example is the women right to vote in the general election happened in 1971 which is quite shameful
In many of the contemporary cultures (e.g., the post-Alexander greek kingdoms), being toppled from the heights of power would result in exile, imprisonment, or worse; in the republic, you could lose a battle as a general or step down from being consul and still lead a peaceful life afterwards.
One could argue that the change in this situation in the late republic directly resulted in it's downfall--Caesar crossed the Rubicon because he feared prosecution and imprisonment by his opponents once he lost his proconsular immunity.
A "required absence" is a thing in a number of sensitive positions, especially financial/regulated industries.
Obama could have had Bush against the wall at the Hague for his war crimes... and then Trump could have had Obama against the wall at the Hague for his war crimes... and then Biden could have had Trump... and on and one we go.
I check my brake pads every year. Eventually the incumbent pads lose out to some whipper-snapper from the new pads box. I might vote red again or I might switch to blue. It depends how muddy it is. Either way, it’s both a new/old choice as well as a red/blue choice.
Time-in-office is also a major contributor to corruption. Lukashenko has been winning the same election for 30+ years!
It doesn't really show that, though. Putin was not stopped by term limits. Hitler seized power within a year of being elected. Lukashenko established his rigged state within two years. Fujimori launched a self-coup within two years. I'm actually not aware of evidence that term limits have ever meaningfully did anything to impede a would-be wrongdoer.
I'd suggest that term limits are party of a package that rests on strong public faith in democratic institutions. E.g. Macron is about able to hang on, but i doubt he could stay past an electoral defeat because he presides over a nation that won't tolerate it.
Per wikipedia.
Wrt to the latter: the Swiss system prefers the elder candidate.
I would rather limit not amount of terms, but the age. Not eligible for any kind of elections if you are 60+, both as candidate and as voter.
My point is to not let people who are in the final stage of their life to decide how future generation should live.
I really can’t understand how Brazilians (that actually have a multi party system) keep having to choose between two awful candidates.
Day one:
- your predecessor had this and this initiative, see pages 4 to 7 - i don't like that, what alternatives exist - we worked this up at the time, here are the projections which were updated six months ago - good, do that instead - we'll need to redo the numbers - then do so, and brief me again next week
If the latter: Yes, that is actually stupid, but the stupidity lies not in the term limits for politicians, but in the idea that public servants are employed on the grounds of party affiliation.[1]
But replacing large swathes of competent higher officials every time you change government... The only country I know of for sure that does that is the USA. Are you saying that's the way it works in Brazil, too?
___
[1]: Sure, to some extent it exists everywhere, but that's usually only a few sincure posts for old politicians removed from any actual influence by being "promoted diagonally left-upwards". (See, for example, the post of "landshövding" in Sweden.)
Its a fundamental safeguard and a hedge against tyranny. Its why, in general, countries that are lead by one person for life can be very impressive in the short term but inevitably fall apart once the wrong person eventually takes charge. Because the odds are that eventually the wrong person will take charge.
History and present have many examples of the flawed human tendency to latch onto larger-than-life figures.
A benevolent, wise dictator would be the most effective form of government, but we are humans, not angels.
In the US, FDR stood 4 terms, and he was hardly the end of democracy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Jair...
Because some can have critical conversations, with pros and cons, right and wrong doings. But others will lie, cheat and steal, and degrade democracy, with long term impacts.
It is not great true, but it is not Turkey/Russia-level with president for life (yet). Although it is forming a succession crisis in much the same way.
It's wild how closely Brazil's politics have mirrored the US in recent years, at least at a high level. They literally had their own Jan 6 insurrection. Lula, like Biden, was competent enough for a time but ultimately outstayed his welcome and ran for another term when they should have gracefully retired. Unlike Biden, Lula actually imposed some consequences on the people trying to destroy his country's democracy.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-lula-presidency-saved-a...
for those partying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vL--PrvsJ0
It's not going to end until Lula literally drops dead. This country proved that today.
It's not going to end until the opposition comes up with a competent alternative. Flavio was the worst choice they did.
Lula's Fala.BR platform is a massive step up for free and public access to information for all Brazilians and federal contracting procedures have been standardized and oversight has been massively improved.
Lula represents a massive step towards fighting corruption
Lula went to jail before Bolsonaro came into power and got released while he was president. It's a well remembered case in Latin America and it's easy to correct you on that.
The case is the reason Lula was barred from running against Bolsonaro. After Bolsonaro won, he appointed Moro as the Minister of Justice and Public Security as a political reward.
The case has been thoroughly disproven as bogus by journalists and even the United Nations. It's genuinely depressing how many people still believe in it
Preferential/ranked choice voting allows people to vote third-party while still expressing a preference for one of the majors.
Same here. The idea of lobbying for a voting system where your vote for a candidate might hurt them, or where you might be better off not voting at all than expressing your honest preference is bizarre to me. If IRV was the only alternative, sure, but we have multiple other systems which don't have as bad tradeoffs. STAR or Ranked Robin would be so much better, but the Equal Vote Coalition doesn't seem to have the power behind it that FairVote does.
STAR has been used approximately nowhere. STAR is also one of the few seriously advocated-for voting methods in which it's possible for the first choice of a majority to lose, although that isn't likely to happen in practice.
Of course just because there are technically flaws, doesn't mean it's not an improvement over the status quo.
Instant Runoff Ranked ballots are particularly well suited for electing a single position like a Mayor or President. Given that it's still a majoritarian system like First Pass the Post, it's a much more questionable system to use for other things like electing a parliament.
I remember seeing a 2D chart representing voter preferences on the X and Y axis, coloured by who wins under those preferences (and some symmetry-breaking assumptions). Some systems showed clear biases towards certain outcomes. IRV had a pretty symmetric shape but with a splotch in the middle that was a random jumble of different colours - an unpredictable, chaotic outcome.
The problem IMO is when there's better options but it's hard to get people to care enough to switch systems again. I'm hoping Ranked Robin can catch on so at least places that went to IRV can switch to a better system without new ballots.
The issue is that you can't have 'Later No Harm' and 'Favorite Betrayal' at the same time.
Star Vote scores high on both but it can't be perfect.
See: https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s10602-022-09389-3?sh...
PS for those that don't know:
STAR Voting (Score Then Automatic Runoff) works in two stages: 1. Voters score candidates from 0 to 5. 2. The two candidates with the highest total scores become finalists. 3. The finalist preferred by more voters wins.
So it combines score voting and runoff. Meaning it favors centrist candidates that are prefered by most people over somebody that can turn out the base.
You can vote for or against as many candidates as you want. Take the top 2 score getters and do a runoff. This means in the first round you can have as many candidates as you want. Those with no name recognition get no support. Also it prevents the situation so many find themselves in where both candidates are deeply unpopular but we feel we have no other choices. If the most well known candidates are deeply divisive then they won't get through.
The runoff gives people time to research the 2 candidates.
I am glad the son of a failed coup organizer and a trump puppet didn't get elected and am hopeful for Brazils ability to self govern. Breaking free of US financial monopolies (credit cards) gives me hope they'll continue to produce and innovative into a healthier and competitive world market, but I am also tired of Lula being at the helm and wish someone else could step up and take the reigns. When someone stays in power for so long in a democracy it makes me suspicious of the legitimacy of their power. Are they popular because they are good for the country or are they popular because they have the right people with power, influence, and money on their side.
A lot of media outlets have been fingering the outage of some data centers due to kinetic action for a worldwide decline in divisive rhetoric, potentially impacting democratic processes.
If Americans elect Rubio after all this, or resoundingly reelect a Republican congress, I think you have a better claim.
Tl;dr they don't accept it, but they keep getting tricked
What are smoking? If you bother to check, United24 clearly describes itself as "The official fundraising platform for collecting donations to support Ukraine."
https://mronline.org/2026/10/16/meta-acknowledges-the-reduce...
But, his dad:
> Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year prison sentence after being convicted by Brazil's Supreme Court for plotting a coup following his 2022 election defeat
I don’t see how to read it any other way. Explain?
The Supreme Court in Brazil can be as rotten of political as it wants, to make a plan to assassinate political rivals is just completely unacceptable.
And before someone tries to defend the bolsonaros by saying they were not involved in this, don't use a defense that they themselves did not use. The defense that Flávio Bolsonaro said about the incident was "thinking of killing someone is not a crime".
Jair Bolsonaro was tried and convicted of organizing a coup.
Flavio Bolsonaro is his son.
Where's the false part?
How so?
I don't really follow Brazilian politics, but Jair Bolsonaro was found guilty by the Brazilian Supreme Court of:
participation in an armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, attempted coup d'état, qualified damage, and deterioration of protected heritage property.[1]
Flávio Bolsonaro is Jair Bolsonaro's son. "attempted coup d'état" is a failed coup.
There don't seem to be any serious questions that the process was fair and that the Supreme Court was impartial (I mean there are always Trumpian accusations of bias, but I mean ones with any evidence at all).
The only part I could see possible disagreement with is organizer I suppose? But I must be missing something.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_for_the_2022%E2%80%93202...
Pretty far fetched.
What do you have to say about this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022%E2%80%932023_Brazilian_co...
Aprende com o nome dele e faz ai um "Já ir". De preferencia no...
* Turnout. Made all the difference.
8 is a really small sample to consider it as unusual, plus the reversal was not that huge 1.8%
So voting activation is to push all those people to not vote blank or arbitrarily.
Those weren't, as far as I can see, real predictions; they were people saying "the runner up in the runoff has never won, therefore the runner up in the runoff _cannot_ win". Which is fairly ridiculous; it's a _tiny_ sample size.
Also I think Lula's campaign successfully highlighted Meta's election interference to the voting base which energized a lot of supporters to turn out
As far as I can see it's pretty thin. US interence on the other hand has been open.
https://thebostonreport.com/2026/10/11/russia-brazil-electio...
https://russiancouncil.ru/en/news/russian-and-brazilian-expe...
This is into "not even wrong" territory. Brazil has a fairly close relationship with Russia, they're a fellow founding BRICS member - and Lula was president when it was formed. What would Putin get from having US (Trump) ally Bolsonaro Jr. over him?
And while it's great that the murder-happy fascist didn't win, it's not exactly a great win for democracy. It's just stopping the bleeding. Besides the obvious problem of being allied with Russia and China, Brazil has a worrying "anti fake news" law. Like elsewhere, it seems the slightly-better guys aren't eager to roll back power grabs that now benefit themselves.
Really? I couldn't tell. In the last debate alone, the main TV network conceded to Flavio's request to not use live fact checking systems on TV. Turns out 75% of his statements were not true. He's facing no consequences for that, nor is the network for hosting and broadcasting his fake facts.
You probably could have constructed a fact checker that would have said that 75% is true, the completely other way around. For most truths or facts that is entirely possible without any contradiction if you change perspective. This basic media literacy isn't optional and it cannot be outsourced.
Why indeed.
I guess Putin doesn't really care whether you are red or blue, but who do you align with, or who do you oppose.
Bolsanaro (the fellow in jail/house arrest) is the one favoured by Trump.
Currently we see such claims resurfacing on topics like Brexit or other contemporary issues. If you look at the hard data of visibility on the attempts of Russia, they are in a similar spot as their economy. Doing decently poorly.
If any domestic news article or politician points their fingers at Russia, it is probably to distract from something else. Sure, if you are situated in Ukraine, the story is different. The latter does have to swallow the results of the moronic foreign policy of quite a few western nations for that matter and it would be served well if a bit of sensible reflection would be put on the table.
Russian troll factories etc are a documented fact, not an opinion. It goes way beyond just "influencing elections".
In fact there is no proof about any impact. As someone who is online too much already, it is highly doubtful the impact is significant and there are more studies pointing to the opposite. High school teens to more impressive online raids if you say you dislike k-pop. Some claim there is a background effect, but anyway...
Troll farms have an interest to overstate their impact. Are you a troll? Easy accusation, isn't it?
Turns out people that voted incorrectly on issues like Brexit where quite focused on Brexit as a multi-faceted political issue. For example they might have objected to be called victims of Russian propaganda. Which is a statement on the level of tea leaf reading.
Polymarket was like 80% Bolsonaro Jr to 20% Lula 7pm, 7:15 it changed to 60% Lula. There were multiple reports in the news websites about it favoring Bolsonaro which itself probably made some people vote for him.
I'm quite happy with the result tho. Let's see how the far right opposition will take this loss. I'm already expecting the worse.
I think as humans we are really bad at intuition about probabilities, and it being an election only makes it much worse. I don't think anyone is consciously conflating these with poll numbers but percentages of voters are the numbers we see a lot more than prediction markets, and 80% is idunno an 80% chance of getting between 50% and 54% of the vote or something.
Every single factor was pointing towards Bolsonaro, Polymarket was just consistent with that.
He unexpectedly won the first round of the election. His lead was expected to grow since he'd likely get most of the votes of the other candidates. 17 out of 18 polls favored Bolsonaro. Market movements indicated a strong expectation of him winning. The Brazilian Real futures are already down 10% in the last couple hours.
But that's how democracy works, I think this election will be studied many times in the future.
Brutal.
If you bet on 20% chances and they happen 30% of the time you make money. The payoffs are such that you win by being a better predictor than the market. I'm fine criticizing it as a gambling blight (not to mention a corruption payoff) but it is also a prediction market.
this kind of gambling ought be made illegal along with the explicit in-pocket gambling
want to gamble, go to a physical place,
constant, easy access apps are already showing harm
It won for Bolsonaro whose campaign nailed it in 2018. It didn’t win in 2022 because he was completely bad in dealing with pandemics (mocking people dying and saying he had nothing to do with it being president).
Now, Lula’s campaign was absolutely dead during the whole time. Until it lost in the legislative by a mile and in the President run had a partial loss in the first round. Then the campaign lit up after the partial upset.
Janones, an energetic young guy elected to legislative with good online presence led the campaign. He achieved creating a WhatsApp group with 11 million people called “Lula’s army”. He would give the directions and the people would obey almost blindly.
The interwebs (basically WhatsApp + Instagram) got flooded with this top to bottom Lula’s campaign.
The first round results made Bolsonaro very favorite. Lula victory was a huge upset. I put the merit in this incessant social media campaign.
The thing is: “centrally planned cohesive campaign” looks a lot like a cult. The point of the campaign is not critical thought or argumentation, it is incessant messaging. Think fandoms.
Bolsonaro voters pejorative nickname from past campaigns was they were all “cattle”. Because that is how they behaved online. Ironically, what worked for Lula voters this year was they behaving like “cattle”. Just reposting and following this central orders on what to post, what to say, what to dress.
The thing is, it works. Cult-like fandoms work in elections. The right won a few elections like this in the world. In Brazil, the left just learned how to do it was well.
The more mindless posters a politician has following their campaign HQ orders, the more votes they have.
And also because the entire state apparatus was engaged in unconstitutional censorship of his "centrally organized, cohesive, persistent online engagement" machine, which is what wins elections, as you noted.
And now that Janones set up his own "Lula's Army", Brazilian institutions did not manifest even a fraction of the energy they had shown while persecuting Bolsonaro.
Lula was allowed to do everything Bolsonaro was persecuted for in 2022. He even lowered taxes on fuels, and got away with it. The tax cut ends tomorrow.
I remind you that censorship is unconstitutional in Brazil, and political censorship doubly so. The supreme court walked all over the constitution when they censored him.
"Fake news" is still speech and cannot and must not be censored. I question the supreme court's ability to determine whether any political statement is true or false in an impartial manner: they declared fake things which I know are true. They said it was "fake news" that Lula was a friend of communist dictators. After he won, I was forced to watch him literally roll out the red carpet and welcome Maduro to my country with full military honors. It was a nationwide gaslighting campaign.
Your side also pushed plenty of "fake news", only with total impunity. Claimed he was going to end the healthcare system. Claimed he was going to end government benefits. Claimed he was going to abolish female suffrage. Bolsonaro has repeatedly said he was never going to do any of that, yet the pushing persisted, and not a single judge lifted a finger to censor you people.
Must be nice, having literal judge-god-kings on your side.
As is currently observable in the United States, given consolidation of power in the three branches of government, it is no longer necessary to follow the law or the constitution. Minimal research into who from the US government the Bolsonaros associate with tells you what their agenda would have been in the "Bolsonaro 2" government: complete, transparent self-interest and complete disregard for actually administering the country for the benefit of the people.
Taking him at his word in the last three months of the campaign after 20 years of a vapid/nothing political career full of police investigations and associations with organized crime makes no sense.
You could argue that about pretty much every politician and their supporters in India. The right wing keeps winning because the left refuses to address the fears of a majority of the Indian population. Even if those fears are unwarranted - dismissing them as "uneducated" and "blind sheep" alienates people even more.
Fact is, whether you like it or not, the party in power has been in power only for a few years, and has achieved more than the other party did in 60 years.
Do you really believe that the INC would have handled Covid better? They were trying to kill off indigenous vaccines to favour Pfizer etc who (a) refused trials in Indian conditions and (b) wanted $62 per shot.
Do you really believe that they would have managed to keep fuel prices in check given Trump's war on Iran?
Do you really believe that Rahul Gandhi is qualified to run a home owner's association, leave alone a nation of 1.4 billion people?
Take a look in the mirror then next time you use that phrase.
Now he will face a much bigger opposition in Congress and therefore will have to find a middle ground.
I expect his policies to move even further to the right. This might pave the way for his vice-president Alckmin, a historical right-winger, to run in the 2030 elections — likely against São Paulo’s governor Tarcísio de Freitas, also a right-winger and considered more moderate than the Bolsonaros despite being associated with them.
(reposting my own comment from a related thread)
Also, nobody can beat Dilma on cutting taxes from the rich.
https://smalands.org/en/the-cold-wars-unholy-war-how-the-cia...
Those, the "we must kill all the criminals!!", the actual nazis and all the other people that identify with the Bolsonaro family add up to about 15% of the country.
lula is a little less crazy (compared to bolsonaro), likely not anti-science, preserves the amazon, seems to care about keeping the same constituition and so on, but he heaves his hand when it comes to (mostly populist) spending, like there's no tomorrow.
he thinks he is helping the poor, but it is just for short term. so much public debt, in a few years everyone, rich or poor, will have pay the price, with interest. people that likes him usually say they don't like milei, but his incredible debt build up is actually a future-milei magnet.
also, after so much terms and "custo brazil" ("Brazilian (Business) Cost Burden"?) still prohibitive, the country never goes up from its terrible positions in making business rankings. one can just not hope he does anything better now after so much terms. his spending is too demand biased.
This is key to his reelection. He literally ran on a "Bolsonaro will end Bolsa Família" campaign.
It's unfortunate. Lula inherited a post-Washington consensus neoliberal Brazil. He had nearly 20 years to undo all that and reindustrialize the country, thereby putting us on China's path.
I would have voted for him regardless of ideology if he had done it, but he didn't. It's just easier to just anesthetize the population and put them on paliative care with free money.
> he thinks he is helping the poor, but it is just for short term.
This "short term" is unbearably long... But I do see signs that the system is reaching its limits. Government was already having trouble paying pensions before Vorcaro.
> so much public debt, in a few years everyone, rich or poor, will have pay the price, with interest.
Bankers love Lula for a reason. Record profits.
There is crazy right and significantly more normal left. And if you want the center to win, you need to ackwnowledge that. Anything else helps the more crazy side.
The world is more complex than "fascist" vs "communist"
Literally Lula said as much
"We are interested in discussing the defence area, the space area, the scientific and technological area, the education area, and especially, the energy issue area," Lula said.
...so this will play in to Bolsonaro's claims the election was "stolen" then probably, if the polls heavily favored him?
A directorate where executive power is distributed over multiple people and executive policy is decided on in a concordat it a much better solution.
But it doesn't help that the alternative far-right candidate is an extremist nutjob whose appointment for the presidential race was done for noone other than nepotism (bearing his jailed father name). That alienated alot of his voting base who wanted a more competent candidate.
Ironically (or not at all) the man who individually received the most money from that scheme is the head of Flavio Bolsonaro's party, and the party who received the most payoff as a whole was Jair Bolsonaro's party at the time.
Politics in Brazil require a great deal of consensus, obscure dealmaking and corruption.
Well it does change which voters decide the results. A lot of electoral systems seek to constantly redress imbalance by having impartial bodies redraw district lines as populations shift. It is a shame the US does not. Gerrymandering is fundamentally undemocratic.
I don't know the specifics of Brazil's system, but at least in the US gerrymandering has nothing to do with the Presidency or Senate, only the House. It's also not without risk. Gerrymandering is bad, but it doesn't change the totals of votes; it attempts to reapportion "excess" votes yielding a large win margin in one area to give winning, but necessarily smaller, margins in more areas. Amongst other challenges though that smaller margin means if there is a wave then a gerrymander can turn into a "dummymander" where previously safe districts get flipped.
>funny business
This is actually pretty dang hard in anything but a total sham, and even then is at least obvious it happened. Some timy fiddling at the margins may be possible to sneak through, and yeah some elections that might make the difference. But that can't counter any serious victory. The more common technique seems to be trying to suppress the vote. But as well as also not being trivial it also too risks backfiring by motivating people much harder. There is a lot of human psychology around "loss", people often absolutely hate things being taken from them even if they were complacent about having them.
Must win by 50% plus 1 of all valid votes on Round 1. If not, 1st and 2nd most voted go for Round 2 a few weeks later. Then, 50%+1 again of all valid votes.
Everything else you mentioned also matters. I can't tell you the amount of times that the state of Georgia, suddenly out of the blue, invalidated a lot of registered voters. And if people don't check, like my friend in a minority town outside of Atlanta, they won't realize until election day. Red states are more likely to play this trick. Your conclusion is something I disagree with, though. Voters have lost so much over the last decade, and they don't fight back until it really starts to affect them personally. I think the surge that we might see this election is only due to economics. If the economics were good, it's not out of the question that Trump would be doing fairly decent this election cycle. This is why Iran is playing things very well to try to enact maximum economic pain in the days before the election. But it's all about economics, and that shows you that people truly don't really care.
So there's not a direct effect on Presidential elections but there's a second order effect.
A major reason it isn't working for now is because Donald Trump is, in addition to being a corrupt autocrat, incredibly incompetent. We shouldn't have to rely on that next time.
He did screw up Twitter/X enough that a new competitor managed to make a blip on the map, though. So that leads some credence.
Tesla is the only EV company in the US making a good product. People also like the techieness. Foreign manufactures like Hyundai (what I drive, preferred less tech and real buttons) have tariffs and such applied to them. BYD would wreck them all if allowed.
Well yes. Those were things in EU too. But those didn't override the fact that he tried to control their elections. The US has some people who swore off Tesla in similar protest, but the overall sentiment didn't seem to impact their bottom line.
I personally want to hold out and see if/when the US gives up on tariffing progress. But I have driven a 2008 car for almost 10 years and can't overlook the scenario of needing to replace it one day.
And I'm interested in an FEV for my next car. Tesla is completely out of the question, but I really haven't been impressed with most other offerings when I could peer over the border and see what BYD, Xiaomi, and others are doing. Maybe I compromise short term then trade in when the time comes?
I don't think "Oooh. Scary muslims!" works any less well if it's required to say "Elon Musk" rather than "American Apple Pie Goodness PAC" or whatever.
It might make a difference for smaller donors, especially if they're more sensitive about their personal PR.
Or, I suppose, you could fix it by abolishing America's Written Constitution so that its legislature can just write legislation for this. I think that would go down like cold sick - Americans love their Written Constitution.
Since you keep baiting me with your straw man, I'll address the example: I neither want to torture immigrants nor do I want to give free healthcare to non-taxpayers. So, given your straw man, that would posit I'm in neither party's camp.
You're not even being genuine at this point.
The right: we need to torture immigrants and more market capture.
The center: I can't decide between these two equally appealing, equally moral options.
Perhaps if the far left and hard right didn't dominate primaries (many reasons for this), we could have less extreme candidates in November. But it is what it is until we start having civil conversations with our friends, family, neighbors, and community. We could be having conversations about how we improve our democracy.
You comment lends to being part of the problem. Please stop demeaning everyone with blanket statements.
As an independent volunteering with Indivisible, my main effort has been to moderate the members on the far left.
The rule of thumb I use is, do they say things like "win at all costs" or talk about how they want to dominate others, forcing their views on all Americans.
quality first comment buddy, leave that stuff on Musk and Zuck Social please
lots of top down rules for everyone, rather than the "trickle up" governance experiments we need to runin order to (1) figure out what works in practice (2) convince others they should try it to
the rest of us want debates and compromise
Person A: let's torture immigrants
Person B: let's not
Person C: whoa whoa hold on. Isn't there space in the middle that will please everyone? Let's only torture half the immigrants
There's a reason "enlightened centrist" is such a maligned stereotype. As stupid as person A is in the mock exchange above, person C is clearly even stupider.
You don't have much idea what some of our family, friends, and neighbors are like do you? I have nothing to say to fascists, Nazis, and anyone who advocates for the things MAGA advocates for. Spare us the "oh we should just talk it out" BS. The time for discourse ended when people started advocating for racist fascism. And if you're unable to spot the racist fascism, then you likely support it.
Please leave your political extremism at home when coming to HN. Musk Social is the place for that, if you need to let off the steam and yell into the void
There is a reason both extremes are losing support, it's people who say things like you have here. The rest of us are tired of you and you undermine the causes you care about. Touch some grass, talk to people in real life.
I'll have you know, I'm estranged from my parents and a best friend over these things. You do not need to talk to them all, but we do need to talk with them collectively if we are to move minds. I let my sister work on my parents, she has always had a much closer relationship.
You are either are blind to the things going on in this country, or you approve of them. Elon Musk did a Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration. Twice. Trump invited a known white supremacist to dinner. ICE is disappearing people. Trump had his goons raid a sitting congresswoman, in an obvious attempt to intimidate naturalized citizens and immigrants. He is implementing Project 2025, which is white Christian nationalism. He already attempted a coup, and has every intention of interfering in the midterms. Oh and he's clearly a pedo.
And you think people opposed to those things are "extreme"? What exactly do you say to people who support things that Nazis literally supported? As I said, you either support these things, or you are willfully ignorant of them.
There is no center with fascism. You are for or against. I don't give a goddamn if you are tired of hearing about it. People less fortunate than you are living it.
you don't see, you stand on a soap box and tell everyone how bad they are for not saying things exactly like you do
you are part of the problem in this country
do you think relentlessly attacking people is the way to win them to your causes or way of thinking?
I'm opposed to the same things you are, but you don't move people when you say things they way you say them
I'm starting to think you do support all of that. Why else would you whine about anyone mentioning it? What alternative is there? You clearly have no idea about the people you think should be talked to, they cannot be reached because they like what's going on.
It took a goddamn world war to stop Nazis from doing what they did. Talking won't do anything to people like that.
you are as bigoted as you portray them to be, text book projection, because you've never talked with them, you see what bots promote on social media and attribute it to large swaths of humans, that's textbook fascism bud
Have you tried to understand why Trump won the popular vote in 2024?
I was like you, then I swore off Big Social and anything with reposts and quote posts, and the echo chamber media that has replaced newspapers. I found new sources for better information and ideas, and started working with my local political organizations instead. Much happier and healthier these days. Able to make more difference than yelling at people online ever will.
This only gets fixed in meat space, not digital space
HN is the only social media site I use, btw.
The left: let’s do empty gestures and those who are supposed to help just commit fraud instead. Let’s support genocide but be “sad” about it online.
The right: let’s make sure that people aren’t hindered in leading the lives that they want and everyone benefits from this.
The center: the left claims to do nice things and the right doesn’t seem friendly.
Or do those ones not count as people?
And when you correctly use the word to describe what they are supporting, you are inciting violence.
The word is absolutely meaningless now.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
Writers Guild of America
Directors Guild of America
National Education Association
American Federation of Teachers
American Psychological Association
American Sociological Association
Modern Language Association
American Historical Association
Association of American Universities
Columbia University
Harvard University
Yale University
University of California, Berkeley
Oberlin College
Reed College
NPR
PBS
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The Guardian
Human Rights Campaign
GLAAD
Good luck finding examples of the opposite direction.
Either your list is way out of date or the Overton Window is so far to the right in the US that this statement is somehow possible.
There are many more institutions on that list that are explicitly not left wing by non-US standards.
(Pretend I wrote the exact same list)
Account created 3 months ago
This doesn't undo the earlier win though. It's the supreme court I care about, not Lula. If the senate gets the supreme court impeachments out, it's still an unprecedented win in my book. There's a chance we can both win here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50255603
It is a fact that Lula promised to reform the supreme court. I witnessed that myself, it's in his 2nd round campaign materials.
I was smugly awaiting his exit from power just a few days ago.
If he reforms the supreme court as promised, I'll call him my president.
There is no contradiction here. When it comes to elections, there should be exactly zero room for doubt.
Gotta look on the bright side. Bolsonaro was closer to US interests than I'd like. If the elected right wing senate manages to at least impeach some supreme court justices next year, I'm going to be OK with this.
I submitted the news too and it got flagged:
Just as bad as storming the capitol!
However, it is an electoral crime to do things like stamp public transport vehicles with a party insignia to "remind" candidates who provides for them. As such, it's not at all surprising that the busses were grounded.
Also it's a good thing people were afforded more time to vote in case their buses weren't running.
It would be sad for a Bolsonaro voter to not be counted because some cheeky rapscallion stickered a bus.
Thank goodness both candidates sought extension and it was granted.
Both candidates supported that decision.
It's also inconsistent with the court's own precedent. Extending voting hours was deemed illegal back in 2022. "Everybody had the chance to vote", said Alexandre de Moraes.
After Lula lost in the 1st round, suddenly it became legal again. The irony is not lost on me. That's the pattern with the leftist judges in the courts. The supreme court judge who decided it used to be Lula's own lawyer.
If Bolsonaro did not want it done in this election, then why did Bolsonaro ask for it to be done in this election?
Bolsonaro's son asked for an extension this election due to heavy rains in the south. As far as I can tell, it was also denied.
Lula asks for an extension this election due to busses being grounded because Lula-aligned syndicates slapped Lula insignias on them which is an electoral crime. Lula's former lawyer turned supreme court judge approves it.
It is obvious that the Brazilian institutions, and these judges in particular, wanted Lula to win. They were going to be impeached otherwise.
Court agreed, they didn't feel everyone had a chance to vote this time. Approved. Legal.
This seems hard for you to wrap your head around for some reason.
https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/eleicoes/zanin-prorroga-eleicao...
("Zanin extends voting until 7 p.m. this Sunday nationwide.")
Please review the HN guidelines:
Many cities had their mayor cancelling free public transportation and stopping people from going voting. Extending the time is a reaction, not a first action. Furthermore, the ask didn't come just from Lula's party, it came from both candidates [1].
2022 Brazil had the Federal Police Director actively interfering with transportation as well.
[1] - https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/eleicoes/o-que-diz-o-codigo-ele...
They called for extension back in 2022 too, and it was ruled illegal. "Everybody had the chance to vote", said Alexandre de Moraes.
I don't think it was the same situation last time.
Not sure what axe you have to grind but it sure looks like you love to present only half of the truth.
I think it's a matter of consistency, not agreement. From my perspective it looks like the court only grants things if Lula wants it granted.
I believe it would have been granted even if Bolsonaro hadn't requested it, and I seriously doubt it would have been granted if only Bolsonaro had requested it.
I'm not even accusing anyone of fraud. This is merely evidence of the court's bias and favoritism.
Accuse me of being wrong if you must, but please don't insinuate I'm a bot. These are my actual thoughts.
Also, all that's achieved by extending polls for two hours across is enabling more people to vote. If that helps one or other candidate to win, it can only be because there are lots of people who want to vote for them.
I simply view the act of Lula's former lawyer deciding it with suspicion. To me it's evidence of the court's favor towards him. Nothing more.
Can you explain?
You are right winger but don't like the Brazilian right wing aligning with the US right wing, but do like the politicians who are aligned with the US right wing?
Bolsonaro generally supports privatizing Brazilian state companies and selling them off to foreigners. I don't want that. Especially not to the US and Israel.
Lula on the other hand is better aligned with China, which is also what I want.
Lula and myself are aligned on these two points. So this outcome is not entirely bad for me.
The problem I have with Lula is his party's obnoxious taxation, lack of a real plan for reindustrialization, continuous defense of criminals, and most importantly, his total domination of the supreme court. I voted for the right specifically to see those judges impeached and imprisoned, because I absolutely oppose everything they did in 2022, far more than I ever opposed Lula himself. I'm of the opinion that presidents and elections barely matter anymore, because it's the supreme court that runs the country. It's the Venezuela governance model: president appoints god-like supreme court judges and rules monocratically through them.
The 1st round this month was such an upset not because of Bolsonaro but because of the senate. They are the ones who can impeach supreme court judges, and when Brazil unexpectedly elected a right wing majority in the senate, it struck true fear into the court. This was our chance to completely wipe out that court and forever change the history of this country, like Bukele did for El Salvador.
While in the end the necessary victory didn't materialize, Brazilian senate is still absolute majority right wing now, and they could still impeach those judges. I'm not going to hold out hope for that anymore, but if I see at least one judge bite the dust I'll still call it a major win.
And yet, somehow 100% of your posts are repeating debunked Brazilian right wing propaganda. How curious.
Also, "debunked" is debatable. I don't accept your portrayal of extremely complex issues as settled, and I also don't accept "official" explanations of anything. I always try to reach my own conclusions and form my own opinions.
I came here to discuss my viewpoints in an attempt to find truth for myself. If you don't want to help with that, then kindly don't reply to me again.
Not to understand this obvious intent, or not to see how the same could apply to the Brazilian election is a sign of either being confused yourself, or... Something worse.
Really, honestly: That post of yours from a couple of years ago that someone linked to in this thread — you should take that advice.
Can we simply disagree without these nasty insinuations of mental illness and bad faith?
But anyway... So, now that we're all on the same page about how circumstances can change from one point in time to another — do you feel up to admitting that your argument about "They did it one way then and another now!" is bogus, and retracting it?
___
[Edited: Changed erroneous "one" to "on".]
[Sigh, edited again: Changed erroneous "form" to "from".]
The Bolsonaros asked the electoral court for extensions and they weren't granted. Lula asked the supreme court for an extension, and it was granted by his former lawyer despite the fact the supreme court shouldn't have authority over electoral matters.
I do believe it is further evidence of the court's bias. Now that Lula has been reelected, he will be able to further stack the court with four additional judges of his choosing. It will only get worse.
The only hope left for this country lies in the senate, which can initiate impeachment of supreme court judges. Lula's party is already moving against them.
Lula's reelection dealt a severe blow to the supreme court impeachment effort, and it dramatically emboldened those judges. Just look at what happened afterwards: order to seize Flávio's passports issued seven minutes after the election and signed off by the supreme court judges, leading to Flávio seeking political asylum in the USA.
This time around, some guy in Lula's party created "Lula's Army", a channel with millions of people in it. Suddenly, it was fine.
They used to cry about "fake news" and call for censorship at every opportunity, and they'd get it because they own the courts. Now they were the ones spreading "fake news" of all sorts. Did they get censored? Nah.
Censorship in Brazil is unconstitutional, by the way. Political censorship is doubly so. It doesn't matter, because they own the supreme court.
There are no laws in Brazil, there is only what the supreme court wants. Whatever they write on a piece of paper becomes law, and police obeys it. They are the true seat of power in this country.
The selective application of unconstitutional "fake news" rules, which were made up on the spot by the supreme court judges aligned with the left: is it good or bad?
Lula and his party spread a truly absurd amount of "fake news" between the 1st round and 2nd round of presidential elections. Why are they allowed to do it while the right was censored?
Then you don't believe Lula should be censored. Lula wasn't censored, so there's no problem here.
Will you speak out against the persistent censorship efforts against the Bolsonaros?
Do you condone censorship of Bolsonaro?
Although fortunately, it didn't seem to be work: it seems Facebook and Twitter largely ignored Brazil's courts and Flavio Bolsonaro had a bigger social media presence despite "Lula's Army".
Both will lead the country to pork-barrel, corruption and government paralysis by debt. Both are "unfortunate".
There are 2 solutions for all Brazilian problems: Guarulhos and Galeão. The rest is just circus.
There is exactly one politician that once upon a time represented me: Dr. Enéas Carneiro. Ironically, his ideas were closest to the Chinese Communist Party. He's dead now.
The left wing has PCO, a real left wing party, and I agree with them on a daily basis. They're shunned by everyone, and were even persecuted by the supreme court along with the right wing.
I'm increasingly resigned to the idea that immigration is the only option by now.
You can check it yourself, the output and log files for each ballot box are already available. I can see that mine opened and closed at the expected time.
And FWIW Bolsonaro was also asking the polling stations to stay open longer.
I think you are equivocating. Denying people their vote indeed counts as election tampering but that doesn’t mean giving more people the vote is also bad.