Background Briefing: October 29, 2018

On By gram

 

Brazil’s Alarming New Leader

We begin with the election of a far right former Army captain as the next president of Brazil, the world’s fourth largest democracy. James Green, Professor of Modern Latin American History and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies as well as Director of the Brazil Initiative at Brown University, joins us to discuss the alarming facts about who the clear winner of Sunday’s election Jair Bolsonaro is, what he believes, and what he has said. Having insulted women, gays and Brazil’s majority of citizens of African decent, Bolsonaro has given clear indications that he will remove restraints stopping the farming and mining lobby from cutting down more of Brazil’s rainforests, often referred to as the lungs of the earth. He has also threatened to remove protections which indigenous peoples have been given to save their rainforests and ancestral lands. We also discuss why left of center parties that have ruled for decades in France, Italy and Germany like the worker’s Party in Brazil, have dramatically lost ground to right wing populism. And we will assess what role the military might have in Bolsonaro’s Brazil given the likelihood that they will play a dominate role in the future which many fear could auger a return of right wing military dictatorship.

 

Can Democrats Count on the Latino Vote?

Then we speak with Ruy Teixeira, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress whose latest book is “The Optimistic Leftist: Why the 21st Century Will Be Better Than You Think” about his article at The Guardian,“Democrats hope Latino voters will help them win. Don’t count on it.” With over 90% of the eligible Latino voters concentrated in 10 states and 56% living in California, Texas and Florida, we discuss polls that indicate the Democrats are underperforming with Latino voters, 55% of whom have not been contacted in any way about the upcoming election. Meanwhile Republicans in California and Texas, including Ted Cruz who is drawing 37% of the Latino vote in spite of the impressive challenge by Beto O’Rourke, are not behind Democrats by a wide margin.

 

Trump is Manufacturing a Border Crisis

Then finally, with 5,200 troops heading for the Southern border in the Trump Administration’s “Operation Faithful Patriot”, we speak with Ryan Devereaux, an award-wining investigative journalist covering immigration enforcement, the drug war and national security for The Intercept where he has an article “How the Trump Administration is Manufacturing a New Border Crisis”. He joins us to discuss the drumbeat of organized hysteria Fox News and the right wing echo chamber are ginning up, orchestrated by Fox’s Bill Shine at the White House, to make the caravan of migrants from Central America, seem like an apocalyptic alien invasion.