Lula’s Suprise Win Blocks Trump’s Push for a Far-Right Brazil – Mother Jones– www.motherjones.com

Two weeks before the second and decisive round of the Brazilian presidential elections in October, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was in Rio de Janeiro for the multi-day celebration of his son Conor’s wedding. The Kennedy scion married singer Giulia Be, a pop star born into a Brazilian right-wing clan, the Marinho family, who are close allies of the disgraced former President Jair Bolsonaro. The nuptials took place at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in historic downtown Rio, which once served the Portuguese royalty that colonized Brazil for more than 300 years.

A week later, supporters of then-presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro carried an inflatable missile with the words “Trump nuke Brazil” in English at a rally in the city of São Paulo. The symbolic image—apparently welcoming a US intervention in the country—may have shocked supporters of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Brazilians who value the country’s sovereignty. But family ties between right-wing clans, inflatable missiles, and requests for American military action against a perceived communist threat only begin to scratch the surface of the far-right’s increasing strength in Brazilian politics and its yearning for a closer connection with the Trump administration.