Thread by @ishaantharoor

Hard right Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, who believes climate change is a Marxist conspiracy, is speaking at @heritage right now. Currently complaining about left "infiltration" in the system.

@Heritage Araujo says @jairbolsonaro is creating "a liberal-conservative amalgam" on top of "nationhood, family, traditional ties" and opposed to "globalism."

@Heritage @jairbolsonaro This is a fascinatingly ideological speech for a foreign minister abroad (and somewhat incoherent). "Our civilization is losing its symbols," he says. Now is talking about theories of "hegemony" and lecturing about Rosa Luxembourg and "symbolic confiscation."

@Heritage @jairbolsonaro Straight up projection here: Re the left, "what they're criticizing is what they're preaching."

@Heritage @jairbolsonaro I've never heard Araujo speak before and it's striking how rambling and incoherent his remarks are. Now says something about 21st century socialism being Gramsci meeting the drug cartels. Now is namedropping Marcuse and the whole Frankfurt school. Now is talking abt Foucault.

@Heritage @jairbolsonaro This is amazing. Unclear if he's ever read critical/neo-Marxist theory beyond Wikipedia entries, but he's asking a lot of an audience at the Heritage Foundation to know what he's talking about. Okay, now to the meat of his views:

Globalism is three parts: Climate change ideology, hatred of one's own and another I missed, sorry.

"The whole point of climatism is to end normal, democratic debate," says Araujo, and now lumps his people alongside Americans, Brexiteers and says the "system" of climate change activists (I guess) want to end freedom of speech.

"Climate became a debate shutter," says Brazil's foreign minister, complaining about the uproar over the Amazon. Says Trump and Bolsonaro "are the main ones fighting the system," "outside of the globalist pact."

The speech by the Brazilian foreign minister at @heritage could have been delivered by a US campus conservative as a PragerU, complaining about the media, globalist system, etc. It's been an endless screed of victimhood from someone in power.

@Heritage Yep, Araujo now complaining about the evil left wanting to take red meat away from us.

@Heritage "Social justice" is only "a pretext for dictatorship," says Araujo. Now they want to do the same with climate change, he adds. "Brazil is being Otherized." He's firing shots across the bow ahead of a politically fraught week at the UN later this month.

@Heritage Concluding statement: "The Amazon is ground zero in the fight against globalism and the recovery of human dignity [or was it soul?]."

@Heritage There's a fascinating disconnect between US right and whatever it is Araujo represents: The latter truly sees his politics as a reaction to a left-wing orthodoxy (hence all the snarling at Lacan, Lukacs, and all the other leftist intellectuals he name-checked.)

@Heritage Beyond its moping about campus leftists, the American right would never care about these people or engage their ideas (however absurdly) in a foreign policy speech. Araujo offered a distinction between Leninism and Stalinism, as if anyone in @heritage gives a damn.

@Heritage When I interviewed Brazilian VP @GeneralMourao earlier this year, he seemed pretty exasperated with Araujo. washingtonpost.com/world/2019/04/…

@Heritage @GeneralMourao Bem-vindos, meus novos seguidores brasileiros. Assine aqui a minha newsletter :) subscribe.washingtonpost.com/newsletters/#/…

@Heritage @GeneralMourao While I have your attention: Check out my twin brother @kanishktharoor's recent hour-long BBC podcast, produced by @maryammaruf, on the fire at Rio's National Museum. It's quite moving. bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0…

Okay this is getting out of control. I got @Juninhope08 as a follower now.

I didn’t support Lyon, but you can’t name a more charismatic (or intellectual!) midfield duo then @Juninhope08 and @vikash_dhorasoo