To review: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known as “Lula,” narrowly defeated right-wing incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s October election. And because this is apparently what we do now in free democracies, Bolsonaro’s rabid supporters recently rioted in support of their big disgraced loser.
Lindell’s solution to this totally predictable turn of events? Send emissaries to Brazil to show the guy who stole the election how he stole it. Or something. Hey, you try to make sense of his blather.
On a recent episode of Steve Bannon’s Skin Has Somehow Still Not Molted Off His Body, Lindell assured the host that he was all over the supposed Brazilian election fraud. Watch:
BANNON: “Would you volunteer to actually go to Brazil and present all the information you have to Lula of Brazil? Would you go down there, fly down there, and make yourself available to present everything you know about the machines and everything you’ve learned about the machines to try to sort that situation out, sir?”
LINDELL: “Well, not me personally, because I’ve heard about this Lula guy, and I’ve got, ah. But I have, I have actually people that have already volunteered to go down there, if need be. And they do a lot better presenting this. So they’ve already told them. We’ve already reached out to Brazil and said, ‘Hey, if you want us, we’re available.’ So we’ll see what happens.”
BANNON: “Hold on. ... You’re breaking news here. You’ve actually reached out to the authorities there and say that you guys, your team of the technical people and all your people are available to go down and actually brief them?”
LINDELL: “Absolutely we have.”
Okay then! Let’s hope they’re as effective as his investigators have been in this country.
Now, if the Brazil insurrection looks familiar to you, that may be because some of the same producers of our failed coup—including Bannon—have been boosting Brazil’s off-Broadway version. At the very least, Brazil’s protesters have been egged on by the usual suspects in the U.S.
Politico:
For months, Bannon and other far-right commentators have been following the unrest in Brazil and have encouraged the protesters to continue to challenge the results. Bannon said he has remained close to Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s son. And Conservative political institutions in the U.S. have allied themselves with former president Bolsonaro, as well.
The influential conservative group CPAC has held conferences in Brazil in recent years at which Bolsonaro and his allies have appeared. And in mid-November, Eduardo Bolsonaro attended the America First Policy Institute’s gala. The Trump-inspired think tank held the event at Trump’s Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago club, where the younger Bolsonaro later joined a table on the patio with Trump and gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, AFPI chair Linda McMahon, and Trump aides Sergio Gor and Boris Epshteyn.
Trump himself was closely aligned with Bolsonaro during his time in office, endorsing the Brazilian’s reelection and forging philosophical agreements with him on a variety of matters: from downplaying the threat of Covid to open hostility to the press. Among world leaders, Trump counted Bolsonaro, deemed “the Trump of the Tropics,” as a “great friend.”
For his part, Bannon has claimed he is “not backing off one inch” from his claims that Brazil’s election was suspect. Thus the attempt to recruit Lindell.
Of course, if you want to send someone to objectively assess the results of an election, you sure wouldn’t send Lindell or one of his lackeys. As CNN’s Drew Griffin—who interviewed Pillow Man extensively, investigated his claims, and put together a devastating report on his barmy crusade—said, “I’m not convinced Mike Lindell understands how voting works, period—let alone that he has evidence of a massive voting conspiracy.”
On the other hand, if you want to send someone to muddy the waters enough to create doubt in some exceedingly wee minds, Lindell is without question your guy.
Bannon almost certainly knows this—and we shouldn’t believe for a second that he actually thinks Lindell has the goods. How do we know that? Because Bannon’s talked with him at length and is surely aware that nothing escapes his yawning maw save knockwurst spittle and nonsense.
But hey, you can’t make a fascist omelet without breaking a few eggs. Or skulls, as the case may be.
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