Yesterday, I wrote about how the Right shouldn’t go to bat for incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro in his likely push to overturn the results of the Brazilian presidential election. In response, Nate claims I’m just using this issue as a cudgel to go after people on the opposing side of the neverending internecine conservative wars.
This is a mischaracterization of my position. I adamantly believe Bolsonaro is not a figure conservatives should get behind. He has sowed doubt in the democratic process, advocated eased access to birth control and the forced sterilization of Brazilian women, and drove Brazil into the arms of the Chinese Communist Party.
I am also completely aware of Bolsonaro’s political rival Lula de Silva’s many flaws. Lula is a leftist kleptocrat who belongs nowhere near the reins of power. Any hope of his being decidedly on the side of the U.S. and its western allies was recently dashed by his comments regarding NATO’s complicity in the war in Ukraine. Not to mention his own longtime predilection for Beijing.
My basic point is that the American Right needs to turn away from election denialism. It’s poisoning the conservative movement and, more important, the republic. And Bolsonaro is not the hill to die on, especially when he’s just as terrible as the alternative.