# Jair Bolsonaro wins Brazilian presidential election **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 29, 2018, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660 "2018-10-29T04:44:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/41 "2018-10-30T13:03:34Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Just figured I’d point out that Hugo Chavez broke democracy in Venezuela. They’re having a hell of a time trying to put it back together. Par for the course with socialists in Latin America. > [@](#): > > Bolosnaro’s election is nothing short of an emergency for those who have democratic values, and it’s a body blow for global democracy generally. Brazil is not an insignificant country; it’s the largest and most populous in South America, and despite not sharing the same language with its South American neighbors, it has economic and political influence in the region. Endemic corruption and tampering with elections with PT in power aren’t democratic either. > [@](#): > > Bolsonaro is not merely a populist; he’s a militarist, who has military experience and enjoys support within the military. He has vowed military solutions to political and social problems. He’s Trump on steroids. He’s what every American should fear beyond Trump. Dear USians, not everything is about Trump. > [@asahi](#): > > Or maybe both. > > Maybe voters are ignorant and are suckers enough to believe that a superman can fix the problems that incompetent democratically-elected leaders cause. The challenge that democracy faces is that people can vote for leaders who aren’t that good at governing, and they can become disillusioned by this over time. So disillusioned that they decide to take their chances with people who promise to be effective in exchange for loyalty. Agreed. It’s a bit of damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t. > [@yendis](#): > > Or to put it another, another way. A murder rate per 100 thousand lower than that of South Africa (29.53 vs 33.97) [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate). Yup, because last-fifteen-years South Africa is model of peace and security. “Not as fucked up as South Africa” is hardly the title of a brochure. > [@](#): > > And I would never vote for a far-right candidate on the basis that they could solve the problem with more violence. You can vote the fascist right into power democratically but good luck getting them out the same way. > > But it may just be my experience living in a country fucked over by fascists clouding my judgement. Brazilians have the experience of having their country fucked up by socialists, maybe that clouded their judgement. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/42 "2018-10-30T13:04:12Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > If he undermines democracy in Brazil, the primary remedy is that the military takes over. Hopefully that’s a deterrent to him, but if it gets that bad that this step is taken, Brazil’s democracy dies for at least ten years. Um… that “remedy” is exactly what he advocates. He effectively _is_ the military in that scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/43 "2018-10-30T13:39:22Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Yet, Brazilians voted for him. All of those quotes were 24/7 in the news, and he still won. > So, it’s either Brazilians are supremely stupid and should not be granted the right to vote or shit there is so bad that anything was better than PT/Hadid. Strange false dilemma there. Those are far from the only choices. We can express our quite reasonable concerns about this particular election without giving up the belief in the general usefulness of democracy. It doesn’t have to be universally perfect to be the best thing currently on the table, even in a country with many problems. Likewise, we can believe that a people who mistakenly vote for an anti-democratic authoritarian – someone who might strip their right to vote soon enough – might nevertheless deserve more democratic choice in the future. Whether “stupid” or not, a current election result doesn’t imply they deserve a permanent loss in the franchise. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/44 "2018-10-30T13:51:21Z")
[QUOTE] > [@Hellestal](#): > > Strange false dilemma there. Those are far from the only choices. In the actual election, especially the runoff, they were the only two choices, the only realistic ones. > [@](#): > > We can express our quite reasonable concerns about this particular election without giving up the belief in the general usefulness of democracy. It doesn’t have to be universally perfect to be the best thing currently on the table, even in a country with many problems. Likewise, we can believe that a people who mistakenly vote for an anti-democratic authoritarian – someone who might strip their right to vote soon enough – might nevertheless deserve more democratic choice in the future. Whether “stupid” or not, a current election result doesn’t imply they deserve a permanent loss in the franchise. Although I think your fears are largely unfounded, yes, Bolsonaro is not unicorns, rainbows and lollipops, definitely. And yes, you can think that Brazilians made a mistake, heck, maybe they did. What is also necessary, however, is reflecting on the other realistic choices. If your options are “cut my right hand or cut my left hand” you can’t say “that guy’s dumb for having his non-writing hand cut because having your hand cut is stupid” without accepting that the other option was worse. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/45 "2018-10-30T14:45:14Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > Strange false dilemma there. Those are far from the only choices. > > We can express our quite reasonable concerns about this particular election without giving up the belief in the general usefulness of democracy. It doesn’t have to be universally perfect to be the best thing currently on the table, even in a country with many problems. Likewise, we can believe that a people who mistakenly vote for an anti-democratic authoritarian – someone who might strip their right to vote soon enough – might nevertheless deserve more democratic choice in the future. Whether “stupid” or not, a current election result doesn’t imply they deserve a permanent loss in the franchise. Maybe at the outset it wasn’t a binary choice, but by the runoff it was. And when a nation has 60,000 murders a year, what do you expect the voters to do except for the “law and order” guy, even if he’s another Duterte type? ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/46 "2018-10-30T14:54:07Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Although I think your fears are largely unfounded, yes, Bolsonaro is not unicorns, rainbows and lollipops, definitely. I’m not sure what you mean by “largely unfounded”. The man literally said “I am in favor of a dictatorship, a regime of exception.” My concerns about his anti-democratic bent are founded directly on his words. The man literally said he would have wanted “30,000” more killings, because the previous wave of killings didn’t go far enough. My concerns about Duterte-style extra-judicial murder squads are founded directly on his words. He said those things. My concerns are founded directly on the things he said. Now, maybe the concerns of the people about 60,000 murders a year outweighs all this. They made their choice, as you keep emphasizing. But even supposing we acknowledge the full validity of those concerns, it nevertheless makes sense to be concerned about literally tens of thousands of murders by the government in the near future, and the potential end of democratic institutions in Brazil. Even if most Brazilians thought the other path was worse, I can still harbor concerns about the path they chose, and those concerns strike me as amazingly well founded, since they rest on his own words. If the choice was, genuinely, between extraordinarily terrible, and _even more_ extraordinarily terrible, I can still openly lament the extraordinary terribleness that might be in store. A “lesser evil” – if that’s even genuinely the case – can still be quite appallingly evil. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/47 "2018-10-30T15:02:59Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > One guy, huh? That’s all it takes, one guy? … It only takes “one guy” to disprove a claim that “nobody” had done something. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/48 "2018-10-30T15:03:45Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Maybe at the outset it wasn’t a binary choice, but by the runoff it was. > > And when a nation has 60,000 murders a year, what do you expect the voters to do except for the “law and order” guy, even if he’s another Duterte type? I’m aware that the runoff was binary. But the question put to me, personally, was not binary. I’m free to believe that people who vote in an anti-democratic authoritarian don’t deserve to have the franchise stripped from them, regardless of whether or not I think they’re “stupid”. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/49 "2018-10-30T15:16:35Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > I’m not sure what you mean by “largely unfounded”. > > The man literally said “I am in favor of a dictatorship, a regime of exception.” My concerns about his anti-democratic bent are founded directly on his words. The man literally said he would have wanted “30,000” more killings, because the previous wave of killings didn’t go far enough. My concerns about Duterte-style extra-judicial murder squads are founded directly on his words. He said those things. My concerns are founded directly on the things he said. > > Now, maybe the concerns of the people about 60,000 murders a year outweighs all this. They made their choice, as you keep emphasizing. But even supposing we acknowledge the full validity of those concerns, it nevertheless makes sense to be concerned about literally tens of thousands of murders by the government in the near future, and the potential end of democratic institutions in Brazil. Even if most Brazilians thought the other path was worse, I can still harbor concerns about the path they chose, and those concerns strike me as amazingly well founded, since they rest on his own words. If the choice was, genuinely, between extraordinarily terrible, and _even more_ extraordinarily terrible, I can still openly lament the extraordinary terribleness that might be in store. A “lesser evil” – if that’s even genuinely the case – can still be quite appallingly evil. Completely agreed. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/50 "2018-10-30T16:07:20Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > It only takes “one guy” to disprove a claim that “nobody” had done something. Seems like your goal is to score that “gotcha” moment, not have a meaningful discussion. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660/51 "2018-10-30T19:18:43Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Seems like your goal is to score that “gotcha” moment, not have a meaningful discussion. My goal was to dispel the ignorant notion that “Nobody argued that Chavez was good”. I don’t think that’s a “gotcha”, but of course opinions may vary. I’d call my posts #23, 25 & 29 attempts at meaningful discussion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazilian-presidential-election/823660.md?page=2)