As “fanatic fascists” stormed Brazilian federal buildings, far-right MAGA figures expressed their support

Thousands of supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro violently stormed the presidential palace, Congress, and the Supreme Court building in the nation's capital Brasilia, reportedly motivated by false claims of voter fraud in last year's election that saw Bolsonaro lose to the current president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Multiple journalists have reportedly been attacked in the violence. The president has called the attackers “fanatic fascists” and promised they would be punished.

As the attacks unfolded on January 8, American far-right figures immediately jumped to defend and justify the violence. There have long been close ties between the Brazilian right and the American far-right, with some of the latter even echoing false claims about Brazil's 2022 election.

Far-right MAGA figures immediately justified and defended the violence

Steve Bannon claimed in posts that the people storming buildings were “freedom fighters” and that “Lula stole the election.”

Bannon Brazil freedom fighters

Citation via Steve Bannon's GETTR account, accessed 1/8/23

The Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft wrote, “The people in Brazil know that their recent election was stolen just like the two recent elections in the US.”

Bannon Brazil Lula stole

Citation via Steve Bannon's GETTR account, accessed 1/8/23

In a series of posts, Stop The Steal's Ali Alexander expressed his support for the Bolsonaro supporters, writing that “the National Supreme Court in Brazil is illegitimate and the most corrupt part of the country. ... Do whatever is necessary!”

Ali Alexander Truth Social 1/8/23

Citation via Ali Alexander's Truth Social account, accessed 1/8/23

Ali Alexander Truth Social 1/8/23 2

Citation via Ali Alexander's Truth Social account, accessed 1/8/23

Bannon associate Matthew Tyrmand was also quick to express support for the attacks.

Tyrmand Brazil 1

Citation  via Matthew Tyrmand's Twitter account, accessed 1/8/23

Tyrmand Brazil 2

Citation  via Matthew Tyrmand's Twitter account, accessed 1/8/23

Tyrmand Brazil 3

Citation  via Matthew Tyrmand's Twitter account, accessed 1/8/23

Tyrmand Brazil 4

Citation  via Matthew Tyrmand's Twitter account, accessed 1/8/23

Tyrmand Brazil 5

Citation  via Matthew Tyrmand's Twitter account, accessed 1/8/23

Gab's Andrew Torba called those who stormed the buildings “great patriots” of Brazil.

Andrew Torba Brazil

QAnon influencers, who have previously expressed support for military coups and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, praised the storming as “a proper civilian coup against TYRANNY” by those “not standing for their rigged election” and as proof that “people around the world now know for a fact that elections are rigged and our politicians are selected.”

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On the Sunday edition of his program, Alex Jones accused the State Department and Brazil's new government of staging the attack to “demonize the opposition as lawless.” Jones claimed the same thing happened with the January 6 attacks in the United States.

Video file

Citation From the January 8, 2023, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show

ALEX JONES (HOST): Now, let me talk about this next huge subject. Bolsonaro won in every state but the biggest city in Brazil the communists control. Polls showed he was 50/50 there, but he lost by almost 70%. Just like they do in Maricopa County and other key areas like Atlanta and Georgia, where they steal their elections.

And you have the State Department, the deep state down there admittedly manipulating things. You have Big Tech censoring Bolsonaro, which is another form of election meddling and voter suppression, which we now know they did in the last two elections here,

So Bolsonaro won. We know that.

They get Lulu the communist out of prison, they bring him back. Military says they're not going to stand by and, you know, see what's happened to their constitution.

But now you have millions of people show up in the capital city. They're calling it the Brazilian January 6 insurrection.

...

So as soon as Bolsonaro's out and as soon as the military and police are under the control of the communist, then a big crowd of millions shows up to protest, as they did dozens of times for Bolsonaro.

And magically, a few thousand people in yellow and green T-shirts march up to the capital and to the president's palace, and there's literally in these videos, like fifteen cops lined up thenty, thirty feet apart. And they don't even block them. They shoot a few tear gas here at the crowd, so they go ahead and storm the buildings. And now you've got a legitimate reason they're going to claim to have mass trials and arrests and to go after everybody. And a few thousand people went into the capital, went to the president's mansion, went into their White House and overturned chairs, and knocked holes in the walls.

So out of millions of people outside peacefully pointing out they didn't buy what was happening. You've now had a group of people, probably most of them communists, working for Lula, go in. And we've seen January six repeated 2.0.

And hey, Ray Epps didn't want to lie under oath. They released it two weeks ago. He said I orchestrated breaking into the Capitol, I orchestrated going up there. I orchestrated it.

...

When people that overthrow communist regimes or authoritarian regimes, Armenia would say they were heroes and it was beautiful. They were storming these different facilities, or the French Revolution, the storming of the Bastille. But the danger is, what do you get out of one of these revolutions? And who's manipulating that revolution?

In fact, we could cut between those images you were just showing five seconds ago of thousands streaming into the Capitol complex in their big city of Brasilia. And where are the police? Where are the military? They were there by the tens of thousands to watch people going in in the last two months trying to contest he election.

But now, magically, because Lula's in, he's illegitimate. The country's awake to him. They know what's going on. The State Department running this. And how much money do you want to bet that ninety percent of the people that breached the police, and broke into a building – because you don't take the government over in an assembly where the government meets.

The military's underground bases. The military is controlling satellites. The government is in underground facilities. It's the infrastructure. It's the media. I'm not saying do this. I'm saying hypothetically, if those were real insurrectionists taking over, you know, they get in groups of a thousand, they get armed, they'd all go take over the national media and the key TV and radio stations, and they'd be in control of that country because Lula's unpopular and Bolsonaro was popular and the military knew how to do that. They could have seized the media, They could have seized the control, the infrastructure. They could have blocked the main roads. But they didn't.

Instead, they stood down and provocateurs, once the communist government is well into power for seven days, let them completely take over the capital and the president's facility so they can then demonize the opposition as lawless. You're about to see a rerun of a whole January 6 program, because the same people that ran January 6 are the ones that run the UN and just ran the operation we saw.

I have so many listeners, it's a minority. But I see you on the streets, I read your emails. I see you call into the shows. You say you're a coward. You should have taken the capital. You should have gone.

The capital's a damn building where they need to vote. It's not the government. There's underground bases all around D.C., site R in Maryland, sites in Colorado, sites at Fort Hood; damn underground base here in Austin. That's where the government is, dumbass. You didn't learn about how it works. You don't storm a meeting house and look like a bunch of idiots to sit there and fight back against an occupied government. You identify who the occupied government is, you withdraw support from it, and you wage siege on it nonviolently.