The right-wing media is taking a page right out of Donald Trump’s book in response to the Brazilian insurrection that erupted this past weekend, casting doubt over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s October election and making vague allegations that the riot—fueled by unfounded claims of voter fraud from far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro—was a government conspiracy.
On Monday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson characterized the attack as a backlash to “what was very clearly a rigged election” against Bolsonaro. “A convicted criminal called Lula da Silva is now the president of the most important country in South America,” he said without evidence. “Millions of people in Brazil understand exactly what happened. They know their democracy has been hijacked possibly forever.”
Carlson’s outlandish remarks fell in line with those of Steve Bannon, who has spent months spreading conspiracy theories meant to undermine the results of the Brazilian election. “I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” the former Trump adviser said in an interview with Politico. “Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up…be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” he added on the Monday edition of his popular podcast, echoing the exact talking points pushed by Trump and his allies to deny the 2020 election in the US.
Bannon went on to praise the insurrectionists, who trashed Brazil’s presidential palace and ransacked other government buildings, as “freedom fighters” and accused Lula of being a “Marxist, Communist criminal.” Like the QAnon adherents who attacked the US Capitol two years ago—a mob that Bannon also helped whip up—some of Bolsonaro’s supporters were hoping the protest would trigger a military coup and the reinstatement of their defeated president. In both instances, that calculus did not pan out, and more than 1,500 people have been arrested in connection with Sunday’s violence.
Elsewhere in conservative media, claims of CIA involvement have spread like a wildfire. InfoWars owner Alex Jones suggested that the riot was instigated by government informants disguised as Bolsonaro supporters—a theory similar to claims made by Trump-world portraying January 6 as a false flag operation. “It’d be very easy for provocateurs to force their way through dressed up in the yellow and green,” Jones said Monday. “Was it provocateured by Lula right after he knew Bolsonaro had left the country because they were going to arrest Bolsonaro on trumped-up charges?”
On Telegram and Truth Social, Ali Alexander, who helped organize the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rallies on January 6, 2021, wrote that he supports “the real people of Brazil and not their fake CIA backed rigged election.” He then praised “unannounced impromptu Capitol tours by the people,” called for Bolsonaro supporters to “do whatever is necessary,” and used a heart emoji to bind the causes of “January Sixers” and “January Eighters.” Meanwhile, in a Monday interview on Charlie Kirk’s podcast, Matthew Tyrmand, a pro-Bolsonaro election denier who has appeared on Bannon’s show, theorized that the agency was directly involved in the Sunday riot.
To be sure, the CIA does have a long track record of staging coups in Latin America, but it has done so with the intent of dismantling leftist governments and installing far-right regimes—not the other way around.
Caleb Ecarma
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