The Desperate Hawkish Fearmongering About Brazil's Election

Carlson’s talk of Brazil becoming a “colony” of China is the sort of ridiculous fearmongering that we have come to expect from China hawks.

Tucker Carlson makes some bizarre claims in a recent pro-Bolsonaro propaganda rant:

Allowing Brazil to become a colony of China would be a significant blow to us and potentially a very serious military threat. The Biden administration appears to be in favor of it. One person who is emphatically not in favor of it is the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.

Brazil is not going to become a “colony of China,” and warning about this is a transparent and rather desperate attempt to boost Bolsonaro ahead of the next presidential election. As far as most Brazilians are concerned, Bolsonaro has done a poor job as president, and that is why he still trails former President Lula da Silva by more than twenty points in recent polling. If Bolsonaro loses his re-election bid, which seems more likely than not right now, that will be the normal result of a free democratic election.

Brazil isn’t going to be “colonized” by China if that happens, and the U.S. and Brazil can and should have good relations if Lula returns to power. Carlson’s talk of Brazil becoming a “colony” of China is the sort of ridiculous fearmongering that we have come to expect from China hawks, and he is laying the groundwork to “blame” Biden for “losing” Brazil after the election is over. We are going to see more of this sort of dishonest and hysterical commentary about Chinese influence if the U.S. continues on its current confrontational course.

Should Bolsonaro lose, that isn’t cause for U.S. alarm in any way. Other countries in our hemisphere aren’t “ours” to “lose,” and it’s a good thing when democracies vote out failed leaders. For anyone interested in Brazilian democracy, it would be good news if Bolsonaro loses. Given Bolsonaro’s past praise for and celebration of the old dictatorship that ruled Brazil for twenty-one years with brutality and torture, we know that Carlson’s cynical claim that Bolsonaro is a “liberal” is obviously false. There are also concerns that Bolsonaro may be paving the way for an attempted coup, but even if he doesn’t try that his presidency has already been a disaster for Brazil.

Carlson describes Brazil as having the “last pro-American government” in Latin America. That’s not true, but if it were that should cause us to think about why there are so few elected governments that want to align themselves with the U.S. Carlson refers to it as a “pro-American government” under Bolsonaro to make his audience assume that Americans should be rooting for him to win, but insofar as Bolsonaro’s defeat is good for Brazil that will also be a welcome development for the United States. If Brazil is “our single most important ally in the Western Hemisphere,” as Carlson claims, it would be better for the U.S. if it were no longer being governed by such an abusive incompetent.