The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
00:36:04 · Brian Winter
[00:36:04] S3: Whose leadership of the Brazilian conservative movement is now very much in doubt Yeah. Especially after Flavio Bolsonaro fled the country. I think he, in doing so, he has escaped prison, but possibly ceded leadership for the entire Bolsonaro family Yeah. Of the right wing movement in Brazil. I think others will now compete for that crown. Yep. I would also note that the Lula of today is more conservative than the Lula of twenty years ago, especially when it becomes when it comes to some of these social issues that have so animated conservatives who've won elsewhere in Latin America. Any kind of progressive social agenda, Lula, somewhat to the frustration of people on the left, Lula has backed away from most of those issues over the last couple of years. He was under pressure to, from some quarters, to try to support abortion rights for example. He didn't want to touch that issue. In part because polling shows 70%, maybe more, of Brazilians are against it. Lula, also one other example from the campaign, he late in the campaign decided that he would support efforts to lower the age of criminal responsibility in Brazil, meaning the age for which you can be sent to prison, tried as an adult as we'd say here in The United States, from 18 to 16. This was something that his party had resisted for years and years, And he finally acquiesced because he saw a need to tack right, especially on security issues during this campaign. So while it's true that the right did not win per se in this Brazilian election, their influence was still very much felt. And part of Lula's success will be determined by whether he continues to recognize that today's Brazil really is in many ways a right of center country, even though they've just reelected a leftist president.
00:38:07 · Laura Jáner, Brian Winter
[00:38:07] S2: Yeah. I don't know if you heard of that book Brazil in the Mirror, where there's a big research done that found that actually the average Brazilian citizen is is kind of conservative and and right wing. Right? I think that was the takeaway from the book, which I was very surprised about because it's Lula's been in power for so long. You kind of forget that it's not necessarily reflective of... And Brazil is also a huge country, which most people forget about too. It's just so diverse demographically also and geographically. It's very hard to pin down just one simple description. Brian Winter is the editor in chief of Americas Quarterly and vice president of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. Brian, thank you so much for joining us. [00:38:51] S3: It was a real pleasure. I enjoyed it too. Thank you.