It’s actually not that complicated. Populism has replaced Socialism as the greatest fear of the ruling class, so, logically, they prefer a socialist to a populist. Lula sounds like a classic third world socialist railing against imperialism and capitalism. He’s the sort of creature they can understand and deal with, because socialism is the devil they know, they know how to fight it and incorporate the best parts of it to serve their interest. They fear populism because they don’t understand it. They don’t understand where it came from or how it continues to have success. Trump and Bolsonaro are the devil they don’t know. Further, they never had that good a grasp on realpolitik or human nature in the first place, and now they’re also irrationally frightened that their world is coming apart, which it is, not that they can do much about it besides drag their feet and slow down the process. Western governments are littered with triumphalist, ‘end of history’, true believers who can’t accept that the unipolar moment has passed and that we’re moving toward a multipolar world that will more closely resemble pre-WWI nationalistic competition than the post-WWII consensus. They’re clinging to the past instead of planning for the future.
J Bryant
1 year ago
Great article. If (and, sadly, it remains a big “if”) the Republicans regain control of Congress in the midterms, I wonder if that will change the tone or substance of the US’s foreign policy, and perhaps bring a measure of realism to the table?
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
I thought that the US electorate were ill served when they had to choose between Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton, but to have the choice of Mr Bolsonaro and Mr Lula – shudder!
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Ideology blinds you to reality. This is true for every political movement.
Brendan O'Leary
1 year ago
It was an aspirational choice.
USA or Venezuela? Voters marginally chose the Venezuelan aspiration. Pie in the sky and starvation in the streets. Let’s hope they don’t get too far towards that goal.
Luis Carballo
1 year ago
You can never be amazed enough of United States faulty politics towards Latin America. For the first time, the biggest economies are under socialist anti-American governments. While Biden gives $40 billion to one of the most corrupt countries in Europe for a war that is lost, he keeps his negligent view of the countries south of his border. For Americans, Latin America is just a source of illegal immigrants and the playground for some of their corporations. The problem is that China doesn’t see it that way and it might be too late for 200 years of negligence.
Samuel Ross
1 year ago
Countries whose internal tensions outweigh outside dangers grow short-sighted. The reverse is also true.
It’s impossible to work out an agreed-upon reversal of this statement. There are too many terms. Internal/External. Outweigh/don’t outweigh. Dangers/non-dangers. Short-sighted/far sighted. Grow/Shrink. There are many, many possible ways to “reverse” the statement. Which way are the thumbs up people approving?
Last edited 1 year ago by Matthew Stewart
evan dyer
1 year ago
Everything here about Lula’s old-school kneejerk anti-Western impulses is true.
What’s missing is the reason people in the North prefer him to Bolsonaro: they believe he can slow the destruction of the Amazon, the lungs of the world, which Bolsonaro wants to raze and convert to a giant soy farm and cattle ranch.
For most people outside Brazil, the future of the Amazon is the only issue that matters in this election.
It’s actually not that complicated. Populism has replaced Socialism as the greatest fear of the ruling class, so, logically, they prefer a socialist to a populist. Lula sounds like a classic third world socialist railing against imperialism and capitalism. He’s the sort of creature they can understand and deal with, because socialism is the devil they know, they know how to fight it and incorporate the best parts of it to serve their interest. They fear populism because they don’t understand it. They don’t understand where it came from or how it continues to have success. Trump and Bolsonaro are the devil they don’t know. Further, they never had that good a grasp on realpolitik or human nature in the first place, and now they’re also irrationally frightened that their world is coming apart, which it is, not that they can do much about it besides drag their feet and slow down the process. Western governments are littered with triumphalist, ‘end of history’, true believers who can’t accept that the unipolar moment has passed and that we’re moving toward a multipolar world that will more closely resemble pre-WWI nationalistic competition than the post-WWII consensus. They’re clinging to the past instead of planning for the future.
Great article. If (and, sadly, it remains a big “if”) the Republicans regain control of Congress in the midterms, I wonder if that will change the tone or substance of the US’s foreign policy, and perhaps bring a measure of realism to the table?
I thought that the US electorate were ill served when they had to choose between Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton, but to have the choice of Mr Bolsonaro and Mr Lula – shudder!
Ideology blinds you to reality. This is true for every political movement.
It was an aspirational choice.
USA or Venezuela? Voters marginally chose the Venezuelan aspiration. Pie in the sky and starvation in the streets. Let’s hope they don’t get too far towards that goal.
You can never be amazed enough of United States faulty politics towards Latin America. For the first time, the biggest economies are under socialist anti-American governments. While Biden gives $40 billion to one of the most corrupt countries in Europe for a war that is lost, he keeps his negligent view of the countries south of his border. For Americans, Latin America is just a source of illegal immigrants and the playground for some of their corporations. The problem is that China doesn’t see it that way and it might be too late for 200 years of negligence.
Countries whose internal tensions outweigh outside dangers grow short-sighted. The reverse is also true.
It’s impossible to work out an agreed-upon reversal of this statement. There are too many terms. Internal/External. Outweigh/don’t outweigh. Dangers/non-dangers. Short-sighted/far sighted. Grow/Shrink. There are many, many possible ways to “reverse” the statement. Which way are the thumbs up people approving?
Everything here about Lula’s old-school kneejerk anti-Western impulses is true.
What’s missing is the reason people in the North prefer him to Bolsonaro: they believe he can slow the destruction of the Amazon, the lungs of the world, which Bolsonaro wants to raze and convert to a giant soy farm and cattle ranch.
For most people outside Brazil, the future of the Amazon is the only issue that matters in this election.