this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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And now it isn't, that's democracy, baby
I fully agree that Bolsonaro was a straight up demon, but I also agree with the idea that - currently - the administration of Brazil is probably about as good an example of a good world citizen as it gets
Abso-fucking-lutely not. Fascists would NEVER be able to gain power in a truly democratic society. No ifs, ands or butts.
Fascists are funded into power (and into existence) by CAPITALISTS - adherents to an ideology that is violently incompatible with anything that can be called democratic with a straight face.
Brazil is not a democratic society. It is a (so-called) "liberal democracy" - something that can be more accurately described as 95% capitalism with some fake democracy substitute thrown in as a legitimising measure.
That is THE WHOLE POINT of liberalism.
Democracy isn't a magic anti-fascist spell, sorry to break it to you. If someone can convince enough of the population to elect them, then they get into power, fascist or not.
By your definition, there really hasn't been a "real" democracy ever, frankly, since it depends on there being a state with no imbalance of wealth whatsoever. If that's how you want to define it, sure, go ahead, but I'm going to keep using a definition of democracy that's based on how the institutions of elections and the state are built, because that's a useful way to discuss political systems, and "democracy is when only leaders I like are elected" is not.
Brazil's leaders are elected through universal suffrage, its speech and media are (relatively) free, that's a democracy by any reasonably useful definition. There's plenty to criticise in how that democracy functions, especially how money and power can influence those outcomes, but there is no perfect democracy, just the best attempts at what people can build within their existing social systems.
Democracy is a political system, while capitalism is an economic system - understanding how they interact with each other is useful and important, but pretending they're mutually exclusive is unnecessarily reductive, and closes the space to actually discuss those things.
Edit: the mere fact that Bolsonaro attempted to retain power by force, but was unable to do so in the face of losing the election is direct evidence that there are functional democratic institutions in Brazil
Yes it is, genius. THAT IS LITERALLY WHY IT WAS INVENTED.
If power is conveniently centralized for a fascist to take control of, Clyde, IT MEANS YOU NEVER HAD A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY TO START OFF WITH.
How the fuck do you liberals get through the day with all this foaming, nuclear-level incoherence bouncing around inside your heads?
Democracy has existed far longer than fascism has... the earliest fascist movements weren't until the 1910s, while the earliest recorded democracy was around 508 BC, with the earliest recorded usage of the term in the 430s BC. You're wrong by a margin of millennia
My dear god, this is history fundamentals. And the sheer balls you've got to have to be that rude while being just this severely wrong is obscene.
And? Are you so utterly brain-addled as to believe that hierarchical violence was invented in the 20th century?
Oh, right... for a minute there I almost forgot that liberals only call it "fascism" when the victims are white.
So it was invented all that time ago, and you STILL don't have the foggiest idea what it actually is, eh?
That tracks, liberal.
Again. How the fuck do you liberals get through the day with all this foaming, nuclear-level incoherence bouncing around inside your heads?
Seriously - I'd like to know.
You're the one who said that democracy was invented as a measure against fascism. Angrily throwing a lot of words around doesn't automatically result in a coherent argument.
Prove it.
Well that's just not what I said - you specifically said fascism, which was invented in the 20th century. It has more specific characteristics than just hierarchical violence; ethno-nationalism, militarisation of the state, flexible suppression of opposition and centralised autocracy.
Just because you're mad about being corrected doesn't mean you need to be a dick about it.
No I did not, genius. What you call "fascism" is merely the specific form that hierarchical violence takes in the liberal nation state.
Is something beginning to gel here for you?
Oh, really? Why doesn't all the mass-murder perpetrated by the liberal order in the colonised world count as "fascism" to you, Clyde?
Where the victims not white enough for you?
Oh. So... bog-standard hierarchical violence, then?
Again. How the fuck do you liberals get through the day with all this foaming, nuclear-level incoherence bouncing around inside your heads?
Seriously - I’d STILL like to know.
Americans are the most propagandized people on earth. That's why so many of them insist Russia is still communist, while another crop of them think Joe Biden is communist.
It's all media slop, in one ear and out the other.
Yeah. The responses on here certainly seems to bear that out.