Vincent Bevins Profile picture
Oct 1, 2020 5 tweets 1 min read Read on X
So, I do believe we are seeing a kind of convergence between US and Latin American societies (a re-convergence? - most nations in the hemisphere are built on the same history) but you really should not do the "Good First World becoming like Bad Third World because Trump" trope
Many of the very bad things now "appearing" in rich North America were 1) already present in previous iterations of anglo North America 2) actually imposed on Central / South America by Washington. It's a back and forth. The hemisphere has been one big system for about a century
You do see the very beginnings of things like death squads in the US. But we had those before, and trained them elsewhere! You see re-convergence on oligarchy and its control of politics. But the whole thing, north and south, grew out of violent settler colonialism and exclusion
But the main problem with "Good 1st world becomes Bad 3rd" is not that it's like, offensive. It's that it obscures the very real differences between the global north and global south, which are about a nation's relative place in the global system. Not institutional strength.
The US is the hegemon, it is positioned at the top (and in the middle) of the global financial system, and has all the guns in the world. This makes things very, very different in terms of real outcomes for the country. No matter how bad the leadership is.

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More from @Vinncent

Oct 13, 2023
From my new book, If We Burn: the beginning of the section on the Egyptian revolution Image
I am being asked about Palestine, understandably, in book interviews, and this is the answer. Whether you like it or not, it was pro-Palestine solidarity that helped put together the movement that became the most inspiring scene in the "Arab Spring" - Tahrir Square in Cairo
Many of these individuals were very surprised, to say the least, to see their movement being portrayed in global media as pro-Western. Pro-democracy yes, and in the Egyptian context real democracy would mean real opposition to Washington's partners in the region
Read 6 tweets
Oct 16, 2022
Presidential debate in Brazil - Lula asks Bolsonaro, twice, how many universities and schools Bolsonaro opened - no answer. Then Lula said that Bolsonaro delayed the arrival of the covid vaccine, and made jokes while hundreds of thousands of people died
Things heating up now ! Bolsonaro says "stop lying," and Lula responds, "you are the king of fake news - the king of stupidity!"
Really hard to hide how much these guys absolutely hate each other
Read 5 tweets
Oct 3, 2022
With 95% counted I think the situation is clear - Lula beat Bolsonaro today, but by less than expected. Regardless of what polling indicated, this is a remarkable turnaround for Brazil compared to the situation in 2021. On to the second round - Oct 30 resultados.tse.jus.br/oficial/app/in…
Part two of the news tonight - in congress, and at the state level, the results so far have made it clear that Bolsonarismo is very much alive and well
And here are the final numbers. The highest surveys gave Lula 50% - he got 48.5%. Not sure if you can really be upset at him (or the polling firms) for a discrepancy of that size. The surprise (?) is that incumbent Bolsonaro apparently pulled voters away from minor candidates
Read 7 tweets
Jun 20, 2022
O Método Jacarta - edição brasileira - chegando no começo de julho autonomialiteraria.com.br/loja/historia-… Image
Já saiu! E estou saindo do país um pouco, de novo, agora. Mas estou feliz que conseguimos falar um pouco do livro na imprensa nacional este mês. Juntando aqui. O @eduardosombini apresentou a obra muito bem, nesse podcast da @ilustrissima que participei - www1.folha.uol.com.br/ilustrissima/2…
E aqui com a minha cara visível, uma conversa curta com a Talita Galli na TV dos Trabalhadores / @redeTVT -
Read 7 tweets
Feb 6, 2021
China is big, complicated, and very important. Its rise is a fact, whether you like it or not. For these reasons, we must think carefully, and speak honestly, about the country and its diverse characteristics. Reducing the entire nation to a strict good / bad binary is infantile
Imagine if someone said "US companies created the smartphone" and you replied "what about the Iraq War!?" Or if you said "the US has by far the world's largest prison population" and you said "the universities are very good!" Yet we routinely speak this stupidly about China.
Really I don't mind summaries, nor moral judgments. Fine if someone weighs everything up, and says "I think on balance their rise is good / bad." What really gets my goat is the tendency to interpret any given phenomenon in light of something very far away and totally unrelated
Read 4 tweets
Jan 13, 2021
So that piece was largely about US historical amnesia, and the false line between the "civilized" West and the rest, but I want to talk about this part here, since there is a lot of debate about the use of the word "coup"
If the Supreme Court had found a way to give the election to Trump, that's a "judicial coup" or lawfare. Flynn's martial law plan, if it re-engineered the election, would be a military coup. Congress denying the results would be "parliamentary" coup. And all would be "autogolpes"
It seems to me that very specifically, what happened on Wednesday Jan 6th is that Trump ordered his supporters to violently pressure Congress to carry out a "parliamentary coup" - which was never going to happen - but then they broke inside, and defiled the symbols of the state
Read 7 tweets

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