Last Born In The Wilderness

Journalist Brian Mier, co-editor at Brasil Wire and correspondent for teleSUR English, returns to the podcast to discuss the recent chaos in Brazil, days after the inauguration of popular center-left President Lula da Silva. In previous interviews I've conducted with Brian Mier, I asked him to detail the complex circumstances in Brazil giving rise to far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro and his victory in the 2018 presidential election. Mier's analysis detailed the well-documented consequences of the so-called anti-corruption scandal that led to the ousting of center-left president Dilma Rousseff in 2016, the imprisonment of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva soon after (as well as his eventual release), and finally, the US government's complicity through all of it.  When the time came late last year for Bolsonaro to run for a second term, Lula stepped in as a contender, and won. Leading up to the vote, Bolsonaro and various far-right actors, many of which are linked to Trump in the US, attempted to