Why is Bolsonaro still so popular in Brazil that tens of thousand people took to the street to protest his trial?
Bolsonaro backers take to Brazil's streets before verdict. Lula calls for sovereignty against Trump
Some people people live in an alternate reality crafted by their media and influencers. The right wing just has been bringing their thralls to very dark places. It happened step by step not all at once. Aiming to go full Nazi.
Same reason a horde of idiots stormed the capitol in the USA when Trump lost an election.
People who don't have mental capacity for abstraction and cognitive thinking are creatures of emotion and reaction, this makes for a very strong desire for authoritarian leadership. Combine with things like sexual insecurity and gender insecurity and you have a ripe population for fascistic brainwashing.
It's happening all over the world as companies who profit from fascist movements use algorithmic media to target people specifically and feed them all the programming they need to become the worst possible versions of themselves. And it's not limited to illiterate conservatives, the left and liberals are also victim to algorithmic perception distortion, which is why we have people on the left protesting cartoons and scolding people over problematic language while there are literal concentration camps being built, and why our liberal population are so complacent and tuned-out entirely that nobody is even doing anything about our impending financial and societal collapse.
This entire state of decline, apathy and outrage at the wrong targets is artificial. Every time we turn on our phones and start scrolling, we are being targeted and made into victims even if you don't feel like you are. Put the shiny toys and mindless content-seeking away. Read books. Save money. Starve the liches and oligarchs.
Same reason the US is now a petty Kingdom.
Imagine the US government did the right thing and put Trump behind bars for his crimes.
What would the MAGA brains do?
Another Jan 6? Watch them kill more cops?
Because right-wind ideologues have gotten super skilled at hoodwinking the common people into thinking they're on their side.
Those common people are the clay of the land…
Need I say more?
Holy shit
No, no you do not. Legit belongs in a mental hospital for a 28 days stay.
I mean if Donald trump was being prosecuted and it seemed like he'd actually face legal consequences, he'd still have tons of people who support him in the US.
Cults of personality who use the support they've built to game the political system and try to uproot democracy do so through their ability to build support.
I'd wager he only got to the point where he could try to game the election because he had the ability to build so much support and was successful in doing so.
While that is a fair counterpoint, it does feel like there's a difference between being prosecuted for like real estate fraud or whatever in one of the most left leaning states, and what's currently happening with Bolsonaro.
If we get to a point where trump tries to steal an election, fails, and is actually facing extremely serious federal consequences, I would expect we would see a lot of trump supporters out in the streets.
He didn't even get held accountable but the fact that he could fail at stealing the election in 2020 was enough to produce jan 6th, and I imagine jan 6th and how it blew up and (temporarily) got a lot of folks in legal trouble, blew off a lot of the steam and confidence needed for a bigger showing in response to the legal trouble trump almost kinda sorta got in.
I don't think the way things are playing out in Brazil is terribly surprising.
Because it’s easy to make stupid evil people hate other people and they support politicians who hate the same people as them.
On the bright side they also had a counter protest with thousands of people too.
it's different for everyone but it's usually cognitive dissonance (most of us aren't exempt either)
No politician is elected to such an office without being able to gather a lot of support from a large fraction of the population.
They fly Israeli and American flags in our (Brazil's) Independence Day while claiming to be "patriots".