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Matthew Aaron Richmond Profile picture
@mattyrichy
Dec 12, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
Today, via proxy vote from my home in Brazil, I will vote with pride, joy and hope for the Labour Party

Here’s why…

(THREAD)
Because climate change is the defining issue of our time and if we carry on as we are, our planet will die. It’s as simple as that

Only Labour has a plan for rapid decarbonisation that can secure the livelihoods of ordinary people

We need a Green Industrial Revolution NOW
Because we need to break the 30+ year consensus that says we can’t have properly funded universal public services, affordable housing and dignified pay and working conditions

These are the basis of any civilised and cohesive society

Only Labour defends these principles
Because we need to fight growing racism

Both from an emboldened far right and from a government that has presided over the hostile environment, the Windrush scandal, and fomented xenophobia and Islamophobia

Minorities are unsafe under a Tory government
Because, while Labour has mishandled real problems with antisemitism, the greater long-term threat to Jews comes from the far right

AS is poorly understood across society & mass education is needed

Starting internally, Labour can –& I believe will– contribute +vely to this task
Because I know that my late Jewish grandfather, a history teacher and lifelong socialist, who went to war to fight Nazis and suffered unimaginable horrors in a POW camp, would have wanted me to vote Labour (God I miss him!)
Because Jeremy Corbyn has been my constituency MP since the year before I was born & I know he is that rarest of things in politics – a person with integrity

I don’t agree with all his views, but I know he is a true democrat. With him in the leadership, we know we are heard
Because it is amazing to finally believe that change is possible

I never thought I wd join a political party or even vote with enthusiasm. & I know there are millions who feel the same way. We are a tidal wave

Whatever happens today, this is only the beginning

#VoteLabour 🌹

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More from @mattyrichy

Matthew Aaron Richmond Profile picture
Nov 1, 2022
In my recent @jacobin article, I suggested some socio-spatial categories that can help us understand Brazil’s political polarisation. These are fundamentally linked to social class, but refracted through varying economic, social & political geographies 🧵
jacobin.com/2022/10/brazil…
NB. These are broad-brush categories that need further refining. There are certainly more subcategories operating at smaller scales. This is just a first attempt at mapping these categories, which unavoidably rests on a somewhat crude strategic essentialism
In the article I used 1st round data, but the presence of additional candidates complicates the analysis and comparisons between 2018 and 2022

So here is a summary of these different categories based on the clearer 2nd round data (figures are of valid/counted votes)…
Read 21 tweets
Matthew Aaron Richmond Profile picture
Oct 31, 2022
Emotionally exhausted after such a tense count & main feeling right now is relief. But also intensely aware of how many factors contributed to this tiny margin & how easily it could gone the other way. Not to minimise Lula's achievement, but there's zero room for complacency.. 🧵
Yes, Bolsonaro is the first Brazilian president not to achieve reelection. Yes, he threw state and private resources at his campaign on an unprecedented scale, in many cases illegally. Yes, he even conspired to suppress the vote on election day. And he still lost!
But he was also unlucky in some ways. He got hit by a pandemic one year into office, which would have been a huge challenge even for a competent/well meaning president. Yes, his response was absolutely criminal, but that makes it even more shocking that this election was so close
Read 10 tweets
Matthew Aaron Richmond Profile picture
Oct 3, 2022
Some instant takes on the Brazilian election and some emerging geographical patterns…

Well, it’s not what many were expecting. Lula broadly performed as the polls indicated, but Bolsonaro performed far better. This is likely down to a “shy bolsonarista” vote... 🧵
While I’m surprised by the scale of the error, the phenomenon itself doesn’t surprise me. It may be that in the wake of the pandemic and growing anger about his presidency some 2018 Bolsonaro voters were reluctant to openly admit it that they planned to vote for him again
It may also be that some of that rejection was “soft” and that Bolsonaro benefited more (and Lula less) than we expected from a squeeze on the smaller candidates. In other words, voters polarised between the two main camps so that the 1st round ended up looking more like a runoff
Read 15 tweets
Matthew Aaron Richmond Profile picture
Sep 29, 2020
Watching Brazil's crisis unfold "on the ground" during fieldwork in the peripheries of Rio & São Paulo, it's always struck me the that the public debate about Bolsonaro is completely detached from the reality of these places. Many myths badly need correcting

Here are a few...
1. Antipetismo is deep and widespread

Antipetismo has had deep roots among the middle classes since at least 2005. Among the poor it is a recent & shallow phenomenon, largely linked to the economic crisis and the electoral cycle (ie. anti-incumbent sentiment during a crisis)
2. Everyone cares about corruption for the same reasons

Wealthy economic liberals care for ideological reasons bc they think corruption = the capture of an overgrown state. By contrast, the poor care largely bc they see it as symbolic of the state's failure to provide services
Read 9 tweets
Matthew Aaron Richmond Profile picture
Sep 26, 2020
Interesting, as always, from @leninology on anticommunism without communism (ACWC). What particularly drew my attention was Jodi Dean's idea that "anticommunism is a pervasive ideology of capitalism, as it serves to demarcate what is acceptable and what is off the table"

THREAD
Ie. Anticommunism (AC) is a means of policing the political spectrum in capitalist societies. During the Cold War, in the West, this occurred by both apocalyptic demonisation, but also competition with actually existing communism via managed capitalism with some redistribution
So what does it mean if AC is now a dominant mode of politics in societies that do not actually face a communist challenge? I believe it means this ideology now polices a far narrower spectrum, which will not tolerate any systematic proposal to manage capitalism for social ends
Read 8 tweets
Matthew Aaron Richmond Profile picture
Sep 6, 2020
This is an important point. Authoritarian nationalists in different countries are scaling up attacks against the Left & university autonomy (which they see as the same thing), but there are importance differences in the themes & the enemies they identify

THREAD
In the US, Trump’s attack on “critical race theory” makes sense in a national context where race is a central/explicit political fault line; & where meaningful anti-racism is mainly coming from the streets & is more plausibly attributed to university depts than to the tepid Dems
It is also no accident that the bogus antisemitic conspiracy theory “cultural Marxism” emerged here– it is ofc where most of the Frankfurt School ended up, & religious fundamentalists & the far-right have long used it to explain everything frm shifting gender norms to immigration
Read 10 tweets

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