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Gaslit Nation

Bolsonaro Blitz (Zoom Link for Today's Salon - 4pm ET!)

Gaslit Nation

Gaslit Nation

Trump, Politics, Left, Democracy, Resistance, News, Society & Culture, Progressive, Liberal, Kendzior, Chalupa, Resist

4.8 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A quick reminder to our community of supporters that the Zoom link for today's salon at 4pm ET was posted on Friday. You can find that here. 

Wannabe Trump and eager student of Steve Bannon's dark arts, Jair Bolsonaro, was sentenced this month to 27 years in prison for inciting his supporters to violently overthrow democracy in Brazil. And where was Bolsonaro during the coup attempt? Florida, of course: a state otherwise known as the Republican National Committee. There, his close allies, including his son, met with Bannon after losing the 2022 election, in the lead up to their January 8, 2023 insurrection.

So why did Brazil hold its coup plotters accountable while America did not? The short answer: white people. For generations, white America has enjoyed relative prosperity and peace, told endlessly that this is the greatest country on Earth, ever. That has lulled many into a dangerous, willful coma of complacency, one that Stephen Miller and MAGA's disastrous policies will shatter, the hard way. Will it take years, or will it take decades? That depends on how we use the next 12 months to help mobilize a resilient grassroots resistance–more on that in coming episodes. 

Featured in this special episode, for more on Brazil's inspiring resistance, listen to this excerpt from our Gaslit Nation Book Club discussion in August, where we looked at two powerful films about art and resistance. The Lives of Others (2006), by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, follows a Stasi officer whose heart is changed by spying on artists. We also discussed I'm Still Here (2024) by Walter Salles, based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva's memoir about his extraordinary mother, Eunice Paiva, who stood up to Brazil's military dictatorship, fought for justice for her disappeared husband–a dissident politician, and later championed indigenous rights in the Amazon as a human rights lawyer. The full discussion can be found here on Patreon. 

We're sharing this excerpt now to celebrate Bolsonaro's conviction and as a reminder that America must wake up. In the weeks ahead, Gaslit Nation will ramp up for the 2026 Midterms, sharing strategies to protect our vote and counter Republican ratf*cking. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, our September Book Club read is the short but powerful Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People by Sarah Bradford. Join the discussion at the Gaslit Nation Salon this Monday, September 29, at 4 PM. See you there!

Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

Show Notes

 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey everyone, it's Andrea.

0:08.1

I am just checking in with you because I've been having a lot of energizing conversations

0:14.4

with other journalists, historians, organizers, activists.

0:19.8

And people are, despite everything,

0:23.9

gearing up for the 2026 midterms.

0:27.3

And I know that seems very far-fetched because of the chaos and gaslighting and bot farms

0:34.6

and gleeful fascism and the Charlie Kirk mythologizing martyrdom,

0:41.5

everything.

0:42.3

It's horrifying.

0:44.2

I understand that.

0:45.7

But we do live in a very innovative country of Americans who understand another side of our story,

0:57.5

including the proud tradition of welcoming immigrants,

1:02.1

of being innovated, and of being a liberator for Europe,

1:08.1

not those war criminal illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan by war criminal

1:14.8

George Shelby Bush. That's not what I'm talking about. But the World War II storming the beaches

1:19.8

of Normandy, putting our lives on the line, sacrificing for a greater good, Nazi hunting,

1:27.4

being proud to fight for the union to abolish slavery through a united, popular front against ignorant, mouth-breathing traitors.

1:42.9

America does have another story that went alongside the other story of

1:49.3

gleeful fascism that built this country through slavery, through the genocide of Native Americans.

1:58.0

There are also groups of progress. And that tradition exists today. I witness it.

2:05.1

I am proudly part of it. And people are being creative and resilient. And they are doing the

2:11.2

damn work. And many of these folks, you'll never know their names. They don't want you to know

...

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