@stan_shakira13The second round of Brazil's presidential election is coming, and the ballot has Flávio Bolsonaro on one side and Lula on the other. That last name is one people already know. Jair Messias Bolsonaro held the presidency while COVID-19 was tearing through the country, a stretch that ended with more than 716,000 Brazilian deaths. His government treated the crisis as something to wave off, left the suffering of regular people unattended, and acted like the desperation around them was a punchline. The son doesn't read as a departure. Flávio and his father have both voiced admiration for figures tied to the 1964 military coup, torturers and dictatorship names among them. Women were imprisoned, censored, sexually abused, tortured under that regime. Flávio recently brought up General Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, one of the country's most notorious torturers, to promote a YouTube livestream, praising him the way his father once did. Then there's Donald Trump, described as an ally of Flávio, whose involvement in Brazilian politics keeps growing. That feeds real concern about the United States meddling in Brazil's 2026 elections. The fear going around is that Washington wants control over the country, that Brazil becomes a colony again, this time a North American one. What may be hardest to sit with is how willing Flávio looks to hand the country over. Jair Bolsonaro is imprisoned after being convicted of attempting to organize a coup against democratic institutions. The conviction followed the January 8, 2023 attacks, when his supporters, enraged by Lula's electoral victory, stormed government buildings including the Palácio do Planalto, one of the key symbols of democracy, vandalizing public property and destroying historical objects and documents. Another part of this should alarm anyone. The most-voted female state representative in São Paulo is Eduarda Campopiano, who describes herself as a major opponent of feminism, even though the rights that movement fought for are what let her run and win. Brazil has the Maria da Penha Law and the Femicide Law, both made to protect women from domestic violence and punish gender-based killings. Campopiano argues neither should exist. Her claim: "a man does not kill a woman because she is a woman," and "a man who does not know how to be aggressive is not a man." She has also thanked God for European colonization and Christianization of Indigenous peoples. But there's a reality in that history that can't be erased. Alongside the enslavement of Indigenous peoples and Africans, millions of whom were violently trafficked to the Americas, Indigenous and enslaved women were subjected to sexual violence during European colonization. The violence of colonization, slavery, and sexual exploitation is woven into Brazil's history of racial mixture and can't be pulled apart from it. Help is needed. People outside Brazil have to know what's happening here. This can't stay locked inside our political bubble. The world needs to grasp what's at stake and how devastating the fallout could be for Brazil, for its democracy, for its people, and above all for women and other marginalized communities. Share this. Talk about Brazil. Pay attention. Our future is at stake.

@stan_shakira13The second round of Brazil's presidential election is coming, and the ballot has Flávio Bolsonaro on one side and Lula on the other. That last name is one people already know. Jair Messias Bolsonaro held the presidency while COVID-19 was tearing through the country, a stretch that ended with more than 716,000 Brazilian deaths. His government treated the crisis as something to wave off, left the suffering of regular people unattended, and acted like the desperation around them was a punchline. The son doesn't read as a departure. Flávio and his father have both voiced admiration for figures tied to the 1964 military coup, torturers and dictatorship names among them. Women were imprisoned, censored, sexually abused, tortured under that regime. Flávio recently brought up General Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, one of the country's most notorious torturers, to promote a YouTube livestream, praising him the way his father once did. Then there's Donald Trump, described as an ally of Flávio, whose involvement in Brazilian politics keeps growing. That feeds real concern about the United States meddling in Brazil's 2026 elections. The fear going around is that Washington wants control over the country, that Brazil becomes a colony again, this time a North American one. What may be hardest to sit with is how willing Flávio looks to hand the country over. Jair Bolsonaro is imprisoned after being convicted of attempting to organize a coup against democratic institutions. The conviction followed the January 8, 2023 attacks, when his supporters, enraged by Lula's electoral victory, stormed government buildings including the Palácio do Planalto, one of the key symbols of democracy, vandalizing public property and destroying historical objects and documents. Another part of this should alarm anyone. The most-voted female state representative in São Paulo is Eduarda Campopiano, who describes herself as a major opponent of feminism, even though the rights that movement fought for are what let her run and win. Brazil has the Maria da Penha Law and the Femicide Law, both made to protect women from domestic violence and punish gender-based killings. Campopiano argues neither should exist. Her claim: "a man does not kill a woman because she is a woman," and "a man who does not know how to be aggressive is not a man." She has also thanked God for European colonization and Christianization of Indigenous peoples. But there's a reality in that history that can't be erased. Alongside the enslavement of Indigenous peoples and Africans, millions of whom were violently trafficked to the Americas, Indigenous and enslaved women were subjected to sexual violence during European colonization. The violence of colonization, slavery, and sexual exploitation is woven into Brazil's history of racial mixture and can't be pulled apart from it. Help is needed. People outside Brazil have to know what's happening here. This can't stay locked inside our political bubble. The world needs to grasp what's at stake and how devastating the fallout could be for Brazil, for its democracy, for its people, and above all for women and other marginalized communities. Share this. Talk about Brazil. Pay attention. Our future is at stake.