Brazil - have you been there?

Yup, Brazil is big.

It's not much like America.

If you seek out some of the weirder concoctions, e.g. pau do Indio [Indian's dick], you can get smashed for next to nothing.

That fuel thing - cars over there run on alcohol, which, as Tracer says, gives the air a really cloying feel.

Street crime is an absolute pain in the arse. I got mugged three times when I was over there, and it does colour your view of what is essentially a wonderful country.

i am even envious of people who have been to the restaurant of the same name on Oxford St

I suspect its quite americanized, in a sense that it would've absorbed US culture through its proximity to it but also its a young country, in a way that the US is. The point abt violence is something that prob repeats itself in other cities that have these very pronounced contrasts such as johannesburg (that's what i get from reading abt it, never been there). Its very obvious what the areas to avoid at all costs are (or the ones where you just drive by and not walk) if you live there long enough but naturally not so if you're a tourist. but this could apply to certain US cities, i dunno...

The soaps are great, btw: they last 9 months each and there's 3 of them broadcast one after the other -1 episode broadcast every working day, lasting an hour each - the beeb wouldn't get away with that...all of them are like a very big movie, and it all ends happily in the end. The concept of growing with a set of characters like you have here was a bit alien to me at first. also, unlike the US, many of these actors will star in Brazilian movies too.

I guess you might try cachaca , its the drink made from sugar cane (if i'm not wrong, its sold in europe as caiprinha, I'm sure you know but its my only drink related bit of knowledge you see!).

this should be some music stuff here...I think david tudor and john cage played a show in the late 60s and its prob the inspiration for tudor's 'rainforest' piece. not sure abt nam june paik tho'.

Violence: being mugged is a terrible downer, but it's not as bad as being beaten up, which is always a possibility on a drunken Friday night in England. I was mugged over there 3 times, as I said above, but was never harmed. The muggers want your watch and that's it.

But that really is the only downer of living in Brazil.

On the positive side, there's music, football, beaches, climate, lively / lovely people etc etc

The soaps are indeed extraordinary. I heard a stat when i was over there that the highest ever TV audience figure was for the final episode of a soap and not for a football match, which I find incredible.

Waxyjax, I'd say give yourself time in SP and Rio and don't spread yourself too thin. Foz do Iguacu is a fair distance from SP and Rio. An alternative would be a tour of the Northeast, including Salvador and Recife, which are sizzlingly exciting.

The airlines all do airpasses - flat fee for five internal flights - which works out incredibly cheap given the distances involved.

Brazil didn't feel it was too Americanised to me. It's a fascinating culture, half Western, half something else altogether. Food and beer are dirt cheap. All in all, my experiences of Brazil have been nothing less than fantastic.

Well, I am next month. What should I do? Where should I go? I've got about 10 days and am thinking about just slowly taking in Rio, but if there's one day (or two day) trip I should make, what should it be?

when i was eleven i thought it was awesome, it could possibly be a bit "touristy" but i don't know because i didn't notice things like that at that age, i just remember the waves being the biggest i'd ever seen, and green lush little inlets and etc

http://www.welcomeargentina.com/paseos/cataratas_iguazu/4.jpg

I'll be back by 4/15.

Not always. My uncle's colleague was robbed then beaten severely. Right on Ipanema Beach.

Spencer, make sure you try Acai but served really cold with crushed ice and granola. You'll need it to keep you going all day and all night.

I recommend a juice bar (you find them on evry corner) called Baby Lanches, but I can't remember the exact address. Its like 3 minutes from the beachfront and on a road off Rua Domingos Ferreira which is in Copacabana.

have fun, spencer!!!!

a 20 minutes walk is not far!

www.discoteca-help.com

note: i haven't actually been there or to even rio myself, but i hear it's way on the mark if you wanna like bargain and pick up a mulatta cutie for under 60 euros. why the f do i know this?

is what i meant to say

That's a foregone conclusion tbh, the surprise would be if they didn't try to pull that.

Nervous but hopeful over here.

xpost

They named no one, but it was so clear who was meant that the Bolsonarists were incensed.

but he simply didn't show up, and instead did an online podcast which was apparently was a big success. The hilarious thing is, everyone is calling Flavio a coward today because he also didn't show up to the debate due to a fairly critical right-wing candidate being invited, so everyone and their mother is branding him "a chicken"

lol nice x2

https://br.usembassy.gov/security-alert-consular-services-suspended/

wtf?

https://revistaforum.com.br/politica/exclusivo-pf-e-abin-alerta-tentativa-de-golpe-trump-fechar-embaixada/

EXCLUSIVE: Federal Police and ABIN issue warning of attempted coup after Trump closes embassy in Brazil.
Brazilian Federal Police (PF) and Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) issued reports to the Brazilian Intelligence System (Sisbin) regarding a psychological operation launched by Trump, who ordered the suspension of services at consular offices. This "hybrid warfare" aimed at provoking panic targets the judiciary and "censorship," and is alleged to have been orchestrated with Flávio Bolsonaro's associates in the U.S.

What are the polls like?

Most recent one I've seen has Lula at 42%, Bolsonaro at 38%.

Too close 😕

Some analysis here

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/battleground-brazil?pc=1794

Thanks, and yes no surprises that left wing politicians aren't up for breaking the power of their enemies

I am at home for family health reasons, and I couldn't move my voting place in time to vote home. Hoping for the best.

xp I have been feeling that, although we are humanists, we need a little ruthlessness against the forces of darkness

in other words, I understand why the Bolsheviks did what they did

also, winning left-leaning parties come through for their base (please take note Dems, etc):

Conditional cash transfers, rural electrification and regular pension increases allowed the ‘underproletariat’ to expand consumption beyond necessities and stimulated local economies in small and medium municipalities.

fucking heart attack following this online. But in summary

Once again, it's up to the Northeast to save Brazil.

Fun!

― glumdalclitch, Friday, 2 October 2026 11:43 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Bolsanaro has just dropped under 50%, well ahead in Minas Gerais tho.

These early results in Brazil 🇧🇷 are astounding 🤯 The far-right is simply crushing in the Congress and Senate, displacing the traditional conservative sector with extremist Bolsonaristas – and all but crippling the prospects for legislative progress in the next coming years. pic.twitter.com/jCjH0I24C3

— David Adler (@davidrkadler) October 4, 2026

Lula winning in the 2nd round might be the only good thing.

Looks like Lula is done. Either this or 2nd round.

well fuck

went with my girlfriend so she could vote today and she said the Bolsanaristas were definitely in full effect. She didn’t think too much about it tho bc the expat community in Atlanta tends to be suburban, conservative, Trumpy. Not looking good :-/

It's not at all about US foreign policy here.

Combination of the limitations of social democracy and what has happened to the conservatives and how they have been destroyed by the far right.

Feels a lot like the US.

Depressing.

Horrific results, especially the senate.

Hopium:

1. The gap between Flavio and Lula ended up being 1.8%.
2. It's possible that this is Flavio's ceiling because some of the other candidates' voters will not vote for him. Some may though.
3. There were 30 million abstentions. These voters will now be appealed to and courted.
4. Lula has always won the 2nd round (though never lost in the 1st round). He claimed last night to thrive in 2nd round runoffs. At any rate, it has shown many voters the danger.
5. Ongoing federal investigations into election interference from the US
6. I do think there are some legislative surprises up the government's sleeves. And they currently have powers to mobilise.

so fucking depressing

I know this is desperate hopium but could musk be fucking with global elections with his sattelite lasers, or do we have to accept that millions of oppressed and desperate people have been fucked over hard enough and for long enough to fall for hard-righ populist bullshit at every turn? I'm trying hard to give the electorate as much credit and respect as I can muster here, but this is fucking grim.

Like, imagine the Ewoks overturning the evil Empire at the end of ROTJ and then four years later Palpatine gets voted back in anyway. like, what the fuck is wrong with everybody?

This is desperate stuff yes.

A lot of it is stuff that has always been with us since news papers. Europe, migration, benefits cheats have always been inflated as a problem in UK politics. Politicians accept rather than defy the narratives, partly because many believe it too.

Yep, got a long diatribe from the Bolsonaro supporter I spoke to about how the defining politician issue in Brazil is hard-working tax-payers being rinsed by the state to pay the benefits of people who do nothing but watch TV and drink beer all day that could have come from a U.K. or US right-winger at any point in recent history.

It doesn't work as a comparison though - what narratives have Lula and the PT accepted?

Big thing in much of Lat Am is levels of crime that are also inflated. There are massacres in favelas that basically have societal approval.

The only thing has really broken (or severely disrupted) the grip of right wing governments/narratives have been disasters on the scale of COVID.

I expect climate change to play that role. As much as organising that moves on from PT and Lula (whose appeal is bigger than PT) xp

feels a bit like 2024, if Biden had stayed on and Trump had a non-loser son to take over.

Kinda sorta but:

1) Lula, whatever his faults, is an infinitely more dynamic figure than Biden.

2) Flavio is indisputably also a huge loser, reason he ran is because daddy is cowering in fear out of the country (would that the same had been true of Trump).

fair enough. is he as big a loser as Don Jr though?

Tell you what, he's like a clone of his father, looks exactly like him.

This was essentially an anti-PT vote, many voters despise them as the equivalent of the US Democrats.

Again I'm not saying that's wrong but worth pointing out one of the main reasons the PT is hated is that they actually managed to decrease social inequality during Lula's first term and afterwards with Dilma to the point where working class families became much more able to send their kids to university, and there is feverish resentment of this amongst the Brazilian bourgeoisie. Don't think the dems can claim anything approaching that in their recent history.

Yeah I mean it's definitely a social democratic government making improvements for the poorest, which will only have so much road to travel when a lot of the powers against it aren't broken

xp also a lot of those ppl may also vote with bourgie brazilians

Yeah I met a guy from a favela once and the amount of right wing rhetoric he had internalised was very depressing. He was also fully indoctrinated into the win grindset mentality, obv "soon I'll be rich and my troubles will be over" is an easier message than "we must break capital in order for the people to have a good life".

The future is grim. Trumpist politics may die in the US but will live on elsewhere.

Jair Bolsonaro tried to steal the 2022 elections in various ways, including by deploying police to block voters in Lulista areas from accessing polling stations.

The courts were able to push back in time.

His son Flávio by 2030 will have had the time and means to get revenge

— che capybara 🇵🇸 (@vogon_laureate) October 5, 2026

Sou de centro-direita.

Votei no Augusto Cury. Meu pai votou no Renan. Minha mãe não compareceu.

Nós três iremos votar no lula, não esquecemos o que o clã bolsonaro fez na pandemia.

É isso.#Eleições2026

— Matheus (@MeGustaReality) October 5, 2026

When I click on that for the translation X says it's a parody account - is that just X being weird?

No, it does say that, but that's fairly unremarkable on X, it's a way of getting past some of the rules about commentary and satire. Whether this is a real person I don't know but they have posts from 2022 about voting for Ciro Gomes, so... some corroboration of their politics from the last election.

Anyway, just a data point, and interesting to see other accounts agreeing with them.

What doesn't explain it: income, Bolsa Família or evangelicals. Group municipalities by any of them and Lula's drop looks similar everywhere, between 2.5 and 5 points, with no slope.

(One caveat: these are municipalities, not people. For that you need surveys.) pic.twitter.com/xPL3oW8JYX

— Daniel Schteingart (@danyscht) October 5, 2026

for me, anti-PT sentiment, across the political spectrum, is still the biggest factor

Lula getting ready for more lawfare pic.twitter.com/NYprUBHHb7

— Don Hughes (@getfiscal) October 5, 2026

Lula’s best hope may be convincing some of the record 33 million Brazilians who did not vote to turn out next time.

Totally understand this. Most countries have a big constituency who will never turn out

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/6/why-flavio-bolsonaro-outperformed-the-polls-in-brazils-election?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialPulse

For Lula to turn things around, he’d need to win voters who backed minor candidates, reach some of those who abstained and find more support in the northeast, which is already his strongest region.

His campaign is preparing a new communications team. Pargliarini said he’ll be watching the debates, where Lula could make a case directly against Bolsonaro rather than against his brand.

“The odds are steep, but Lula remains an extremely powerful communicator,” he said. “Going hard at Flavio in this round is his only hope.”

https://www.panamericandispatch.org/p/meta-discovers-new-tool-to-sabotage

Flavio Bolsonaro: "Lula, can you explain to me why 73% of the prisoners voted for you?".

Lula: "If it were up to me, 100% would vote for me, including your dad".

https://media.tenor.com/WwnjSDXBLi4AAAAM/ba-dumm.gif