You can already. The difference between Lula and Obama is that the latter ruled the most powerful country on earth with a supermajority and couldn't even achieve milquetoast liberal promises. The former is president of a country that was defeated in the Cold War and who's always ruled with a conservative and ever more hostile Congress, but still manages to achieve funding for public services like socialized education and health care.
I always say there's a massive difference between being a liberal in the global south and a liberal in the imperial core.
I always say there's a massive difference between being a liberal in the global south and a liberal in the imperial core.
Very important point there. I guess what disappoints me the most in Lula's current government is the constant conciliation and compromise. I mean, look at who his goddamn VP is. It's just that it always feels like the factors which led to the coup in 2016 are still there, still festering. Bolsonaro lost and we're in a period of relative calm, but where do we go from here? Lula can only be reelected once, and then what happens next? I don't know man, it's late and I'm in a lithium brainfog right now so I don't want to belabor this point, but... there's something missing and I don't know what it is.
I guess what disappoints me the most in Lula's current government is the constant conciliation and compromise.
It's fair to be afraid of what comes next. I am too. There's no political figure on Lula's level anywhere in Brazil, to say nothing of the center left in general or his own party. But what you're describing here is governing. There are always limits to power, and there are further limits imposed by local politics and Congress. We are, for an instance, lucky that the brazilian judiciary is the sort to permit gay marriage by fiat, and that the evangelical lobbies are still too weak to legislate against it. But barring that sort of thing it's hard to find a single political figure that would have performed as well as Lula did in his center-left agenda.
Lula has been able to do good things because of the conciliation and compromise. He's been able to rule the country despite being a minority government because he's uniquely able to deal with the bourgeoisie's material interests. For good and ill, Lula is just about the last politician capable of talking to the political elites of Brazil in a way that does not render them schizophrenic and self sabotaging.
I mean you're running a country so you have two choices, conciliatory liberalism so that the opposition at least sorta works with you and doesn't actively coup you or you gulag the opposition and remove them from power. If you don't have the popular support and strength of arms to do the latter, well, you're stuck with conciliation and compromise
You can already. The difference between Lula and Obama is that the latter ruled the most powerful country on earth with a supermajority and couldn't even achieve milquetoast liberal promises. The former is president of a country that was defeated in the Cold War and who's always ruled with a conservative and ever more hostile Congress, but still manages to achieve funding for public services like socialized education and health care.
I always say there's a massive difference between being a liberal in the global south and a liberal in the imperial core.
Very important point there. I guess what disappoints me the most in Lula's current government is the constant conciliation and compromise. I mean, look at who his goddamn VP is. It's just that it always feels like the factors which led to the coup in 2016 are still there, still festering. Bolsonaro lost and we're in a period of relative calm, but where do we go from here? Lula can only be reelected once, and then what happens next? I don't know man, it's late and I'm in a lithium brainfog right now so I don't want to belabor this point, but... there's something missing and I don't know what it is.
It's fair to be afraid of what comes next. I am too. There's no political figure on Lula's level anywhere in Brazil, to say nothing of the center left in general or his own party. But what you're describing here is governing. There are always limits to power, and there are further limits imposed by local politics and Congress. We are, for an instance, lucky that the brazilian judiciary is the sort to permit gay marriage by fiat, and that the evangelical lobbies are still too weak to legislate against it. But barring that sort of thing it's hard to find a single political figure that would have performed as well as Lula did in his center-left agenda.
Lula has been able to do good things because of the conciliation and compromise. He's been able to rule the country despite being a minority government because he's uniquely able to deal with the bourgeoisie's material interests. For good and ill, Lula is just about the last politician capable of talking to the political elites of Brazil in a way that does not render them schizophrenic and self sabotaging.
I mean you're running a country so you have two choices, conciliatory liberalism so that the opposition at least sorta works with you and doesn't actively coup you or you gulag the opposition and remove them from power. If you don't have the popular support and strength of arms to do the latter, well, you're stuck with conciliation and compromise