Anyone familiar with the trajectory of Steve Bannon’s career knows he always has multiple coals in the fire. Over the past five years, Steve Bannon, the senior counselor and chief strategist to former President Donald Trump has certainly had his ups and downs. He was a big winner when he helped Trump win the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Clinton. He was a big loser when Trump fired him after less than seven months at the White House. He was a big loser when he was arrested for allegedly siphoning money from a charity called "We Build the Wall," to use on personal expenses and purchases, but a Trump pardon saved his butt. He was a big winner when he charted plans and was raising money for Dignitatis Humanae Institute, his training school in Italy for right-wing activists, but this year, Italy’s Council of State definitively ruled against the project and shut it down.
In August, at a“cyber symposium” hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Bannon charted another course. Speaking about Brazil’s 2022 presidential election, he clearly looked to make it the next MAGA battleground.
Bannon followed Eduardo Bolsanaro — the son of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — to the speaker’s podium, and called next year’s presidential race in Brazil the “second most important election in the world,” asserting that “Bolsonaro will win unless it’s stolen by, guess what, the machines.” Bannon also said that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro’s main opponent, is “the most dangerous leftist in the world, a criminal, a communist who is supported by the entire US press.” Shades of “Crooked Hillary!”
Bannon’s statements run directly counter to recent Brazilian polling that has Lula, the former president, who heads the center-left Workers’ Party, and the most prominent voice of the opposition, out front.
Among other things, Eduardo Bolsonaro said, “I'm going to tell a story. Imagine a country where, on election day, officials start counting votes minute by minute and then pause for a few hours. And when they start counting again, guess what, whoever was in second place is now in first.”
According to The New Republic’s Andre Pagliarini (((https://newrepublic.com/article/163301/steve-bannon-brazil-maga-battleground-bolsonaro), in Brazil, President Bolsonaro “has even raised the prospect of military intervention to supposedly ensure the integrity of the vote, parading army tanks and troops in Brasília on August 10. To all but his most ardent supporters, the president’s real intentions are obvious. He is preparing to reject an unfavorable future outcome by sowing doubt now.”
Pagliarini reported that “Eduardo Bolsonaro’s appearance at Lindell’s event appears to be the next step in this strategy. Bolsonaro is now attempting to link events in Brazil to the broader network of fantastical delusions, resentments, and outrages that fuel the Trump base and, by extension, much of the Republican Party. Bolsonaro —with Bannon apparently on his side — wants to make Brazil the next MAGA battleground.”
After the U.S. presidential election, Bolsonaro was slow to recognize Joe Biden’s victory. According to The Intercept, “For more than 30 days, he claimed that Trump had been a victim of electoral fraud.” Then he relented. Then, he changed his mind, telling “a Biden representative that he believed in fraud in the American elections, which stunned his interlocutor. Bolsonaro has made it clear to the US government that he considers Biden an illegitimate president.”
How will Bannon’s evil hand play out in Brazil? Stay tuned!