Trump Endorses Jair Bolsonaro, Who Is Said To Be ‘Laying the Groundwork For A Coup’ If He Loses In Brazil

Somebody needs to get the phone away from Donald. It’s bad optics to be endorsing a foreign dictator who is rumored to be unwilling to leave the capitol if he’s defeated, although it is certainly understandable why such a character would appeal to Trump. A few minutes before 6:00 a.m. PDT, he posted a glowing recommendation of Jair Bolsonaro, a fascist dictator who routinely tortures political prisoners and who publicly praises Viktor Orban as “a brother.”

I don’t know why the GOP could possibly object to the label “semi-fascist” or even full blown fascist when its purported standard bearer and 2024 nominee openly endorses dictators. And we haven’t even mentioned Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin.

Let’s see if the post stays up. Here’s a screenshot.

Bolsonaro is such bad news that hundreds of thousands of Brazilians signed a pro-democracy manifesto, because they’re afraid when Bolsonaro loses he’ll “promote a Trump-style insurrection against democracy.” Guardian:

“The polls show he will be defeated. But there’s no doubt that he’s laying the groundwork for a coup. It’s my belief that he wants to repeat what happened in the Capitol in the United States,” [former justice minister Jose Carlos Dias] claimed in reference to the 6 January assault on Congress by supporters of Donald Trump.

Bolsonaro – a pro-Trump populist whose politician son was in Washington during that failed insurrection and met with Trump’s supporters and relatives – has never been shy about his disdain for democracy or his admiration for autocrats such as Chile’s General Augusto Pinochet.

Since taking office in 2019, Bolsonaro has repeatedly encouraged anti-democratic protests and attacked Brazil’s institutions. He once invited the wife of the dictatorship’s most notorious torturer to visit him at the presidential palace, calling him a “national hero”.

Visiting Hungary earlier this year, Bolsonaro hailed its far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán – who has governed since 2010 and been accused of eroding his country’s democracy – as “a brother”.

But fears for the future of Brazil’s young democracy have intensified in the lead-up to October’s crunch election, which polls suggest will be won by Bolsonaro’s leftist rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Facing electoral wipeout and possible jail for his calamitous Covid response and other alleged crimes, Bolsonaro has radicalized, urging supporters to “take to the streets for the last time”.

“We are the majority, we are upstanding folk, and we are prepared to fight for our freedom,” the Brazilian president declared ominously last month as he launched his re-election campaign.

Those threats, and Bolsonaro’s outlandish decision to summon foreign ambassadors to trash Brazil’s internationally respected electronic voting system, have convinced some he is cooking up some kind of pre-election political rupture.

Sound familiar? Let’s see the GOP defend this one. If I was Ronna McDaniel I would be having a migraine right about now. You are judged by the company you keep and you most certainly are judged by the people whom you profess to admire.