Comment by fitblipper

France here might disagree. If you have an overly scattered left wing by voting whomever in the first round... you end up with a macron flavored moron as the sole non far-right option in the second round and have to deal with this shit for the next five years.

Ha! I knew it. That was way too unlikely. But it was a great narrative. Kudos to Selenskyj.

This far less popular than United 24 which is a propaganda outlet disguised as a news site. People believe what they want to hear.

The world is more worried about US/CIA bots(US social sites) than any so-called Russian bots

Lula is neither anti-US, nor is he anti-NATO. He is against a single country having hegemony over the globe, against US meddling in Latin American elections (including with trade policy as of late), and against huge defense budgets.

That feels like an analysis stuck in 2015.

Im not sure the strategic calculation is as simplistic as that

Would a Trump puppet not also be anti-NATO and pro-Putin?

> How do "they" "have" the supreme court

By the end of the next four years, Lula will finish his term with 70% of the seats of the supreme court being filled directly by his party.

They also stacked the lesser courts with judges which support him. Including the electoral court. We had judges who openly declared their vote for him judging his electoral complaints this entire month. Any guess which way the judges leaned?

Did you know one of the supreme court judges used to be Lula's own lawyer?

> and why does that mean that they're popular and win elections?

The supreme court literally engaged in unconstitutional censorship in order to get him elected in 2022. Judges also constantly barred Bolsonaro from doing things in 2022 that Lula was allowed to do this month, like lowering taxes at the gas pump before the election.

The supreme court was so incredibly politically active in 2022, it destabilized the country and led directly to the January 8th nonsense where people asked the military to enact a coup.

There's a saying here: "judges = gods". Actual lawyer told me that. And Lula owns the judges. If you don't see how having literal judge-god-kings on your side can tilt elections, then I don't know what I can possibly say to convince you.

Here's an example from the last four years: Lula implemented a tax on financial operations, our elected congress blocked it, then he went to the supreme court and they rammed it down our throats. Yes, the supreme court raised taxes. Not a single person voted for those judges, by the way. This is the Venezuela governance model.

The whole point of electing the right wing was to make those gods bleed. I'm going to go ahead and deflate my expectations now.

No, it means they get an extra 2h of voting with no legislation backing that nor a precedent to go after.

I substantiated my logic in a reply to your sibling comment. Here is the link:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50239676

Yeah, and the court was not at all inclined to grant it, just like they didn't grant an extension when Bolsonaro asked for one in 2022. "Everyone had the opportunity to vote", the judge said back then.

Then Lula asks for one, because his own people placed Lula stickers on busses which is an electoral crime and caused them to be grounded. Suddenly his former lawyer turned supreme court judge is moved to the point of tears at his plight and grants it immediately. The irony is not lost on me.

The Brazilian Supreme Court is completely out of control and its judgements mean nothing. It's not like the American Supreme Court that only arbitrates constitutional matters. Look at the recent history of it and you'll find judges on it using the police as their personal enforcers, randomly imprisoning people who criticize them, high levels of outright corruption and Lula's personal lawyer being appointed to it. Think about it: would the US Supreme Court personally convict someone of a crime? No, they only hear appeals, there is no such thing as someone directly imprisoned by a single supreme court judge in America. The Brazilian court also interferes directly in elections - in this case one of them ordered that voting be extended for hours after it had already been closed and the ballot boxes sealed for no good reason.

Basically, in Brazil the Supreme Court appears to be directly in charge of the police, and they can and do issue whatever "rulings" they want to impose their will on whatever or whoever they feel like, with no appeals possible. Including elected politicians.

I expect this HN thread to be a disaster zone of badly informed takes, but the Brazilians I know consider Brazil to be a dictatorship and this election to have been stolen. It's a sad day.

There is this narrative I heard from a Brazilian near me that the Supreme Court in Brazil is political and rotten to the core.

> There don't seem to be any serious questions that the process was fair and that the Supreme Court was impartial

This is the supreme court that in 2019 launched a perpetual "fake news" inquisition where they are themselves the victims, investigators, prosecutors, judges and executioners of wildcard crimes against themselves with a jurisdiction covering the entire territory of Brazil.

Saying that Bolsonaro was convicted by this court carries less weight to me than saying he was banned by dang.

The whole point of electing a right wing senate and Bolsonaro's son was to impeach and hold accountable the judges of this court. Obviously, that's never going to happen now. Lula will put four additional judges in there, and will rule uncontested until the day that he dies. It's the Venezuela model.

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