Hacker News Reader

Comment by croes | Hacker News Reader

That would mean it happened under Jair Bolsonaro

It did. Their excuse (both the court itself as well as the media trying to justify the court's actions) was/is something among the lines of "Oh, Bolsonaro would establish a dictatorship [an hypothetical that never happen, Bolsonaro unlike the Supreme Court, never crossed a red line], so we will instead establish our actual dictatorship to prevent his dictatorship".

And here we are in 2024, Bolsonaro is not president anymore, the elections (organized by people who pretty much opposed Bolsonaro btw...) are over, but the Supreme Court is still arresting people. They are still having trials were the court is the accuser, the "victim", and the judge – all in the same figure. They are still ordering profiles on social media to be blocked. They are still trying to arrest journalists abroad. They are still sentencing protesters, or at best rioters, to 17 years in prison because they broke some stuff – they accuse those random people without any real power, random common people, to have threaten the rule of law.

It's bad.

Not the full story. You are omitting the fact that Bolsonaro made several allegations of voter fraud on social media, and Brazil had their own version of January 6th after he lost (what you called "at best rioters"). These decisions are a response to those events, but your post paints him as a blameless victim.

Are we just going to ignore all the people that were camping in front of military barracks? The manifesto that was going around in the Army, in support of a coup to prevent Lula from taking power? How the US government, thanks to Biden, pressured generals in Brazil to uphold democracy (which means if Trump was president, there might have been a successful coup?).

We have the documents. We have the witnesses. Don't play disingenuous games and try to gaslight us that it is all in our heads. Alexandre de Moraes will go down in Brazilian history as a men who did everything to keep Brazil a democracy.

Then why does Moraes need to censor people on Twitter? If the argument is ironclad, shouldn't it be able to defend itself from speech?

One look at the photos of Bolsonaro eating the Florida KFC immediately after the elections would tell you immediately that he never had the "it" to be a dictator, especially one that would need to actually do the regime change(and not simply inherit like Maduro).

It sounds very misleading to frame those responsible for storming into the Congress on January 8th, while attempting to "stop the steal" that the elections supposedly were, as simply "at best rioters, to 17 years in prison because they broke some stuff".

This would only sense if you also believe the rioters of 6th of January that stormed the capital also "just" broke some stuff.

Otherwise, this argument is just not okay.

> Bolsonaro unlike the Supreme Court, never crossed a red line

Crossing the line and failing is not the same as "never crossing the line".

Anyway, Bolsonaro was quite supportive of that same structure. Because he wanted the money-flow that came with it (previously illegal flow, but since 2021, well, it's up to be seen). Just like Lula, and Dilma, and Temer...

> And here we are in 2024, Bolsonaro is not president anymore, the elections (organized by people who pretty much opposed Bolsonaro btw...) are over

Crimes committed 2 years ago don't prescribe this fast, Bolsonaro will probably go to jail still.

The President is part of the executive branch, not the judicial branch.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com