Thread by @BrazilBrian

The rise of @jairbolsonaro was predictable.

Brazilians have been craving "law & order" for years, but their democratic leaders largely ignored them. I started writing about this in Nov 2015, after I was caught in a fatal shootout in the Amazon 1/?

This was a gunfight following a prison escape. Hundreds of us were stuck on the highway for hours as police searched (in vain) for the killers. The vibe in the crowd shocked me, was ENTIRELY different from the 2000s Brazil I first knew:

By April 2016 Congress was debating Dilma Rousseff's impeachment, but many Brazilians had already decided *entire* political class was corrupt. After interviewing people at a "Fora Todos Eles" ("They all must go") march in SP, I wrote for 1st time Bolsonaro could win in 2018

A week later, Bolsonaro dedicated his impeachment vote to a military coronel notorious for torturing leftists (like Dilma) during the 1964-85 dictatorship. Polite society reacted in horror, but many voters thought - Aha, this is just the guy to destroy the establishment

My colleague @BrenOBoyle saw what was happening. Check this out. Again, this was April 2016 americasquarterly.org/content/jair-b…

The Nov 2016 election of João Doria as mayor of SP - after a dark, clearly authoritarian rant against criminals on social media - was another canary in the coal mine.

In this same piece I wrote that "Brazil is in precisely zero danger of returning to military rule."

I was wrong. americasquarterly.org/content/brazil…

Dumb thing to say, because in this same piece we published a graph showing how support for democracy in Brazil was plunging fast in 2016, & trailed only Guatemala in LatAm

Anyway, I'll speed things up here, but by July 2017 it was clear Bolsonaro was the only candidate in the race generating any enthusiasm americasquarterly.org/content/brazil…

What was truly insane was the degree of denial from Brazil's establishment, who refused to see that 1) the campaign began MUCH earlier than normal 2) crime/violence wld be bigger issue than past elections 3) the country was not in a "moderate" mood
americasquarterly.org/content/wanted…

The point here isn't to say "I told you so," but.. no, it actually is kinda that. Sorry, I know it's bad behavior. But I've had literally hundreds of establishment types (incl name-brand political analysts) shake their fingers & tell me I don't understand Brazil in past 3 yrs..

...including one of the major candidates, who when I asked about Bolsonaro at a private event earlier this year, rolled his eyes & tersely replied: "I'm not worried about him," & changed the subject

Regardless of final outcome, Brazil 2018 is an epic tale of establishment that failed to listen, ignored the issues that engaged voters most (namely crime & corruption), and didn't take the insurgent seriously. It's a global story, but especially pronounced here...

... which makes sense, since Brazil is arguably the Western democracy that has taken the biggest beating in recent years from recession, scandal and overall dysfunction.

PS Wish I'd been wrong!!