The Daily Beast reports on the Trump-Bolsonaro bromance:
Following Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, and after the bloody Jan. 6 riot that Trump instigated, the 45th U.S. president immediately lost many of his ties to world leaders he once called “friends.” However, Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who has modeled himself in Trump’s image, sought to keep the bromance alive.
That’s something former President Trump, months after officially departing the White House, hasn’t forgotten, and has expressed some interest in returning the favor.
This summer, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, Trump told confidants that he’s open to publicly endorsing Bolsonaro’s reelection, potentially at a mega-rally in Brazil where he and Bolsonaro could appear together side-by-side, to rail against what they each deem undesired election outcomes. Bolsonaro, who is widely expected to decisively fail in his reelection bid next year, has been preemptively spreading groundless claims of election “fraud,” a strategy jarringly reminiscent of Trump’s failed coup in the United States.
I very much doubt that Trump will tie himself to a losing campaign like that. He’ll find an excuse not to do it. But the closeness of the two camps is still disconcerting. It represents the Trumpification of more than just this country but also the international far right.
That’s been Steve Bannon’s project from the beginning. I don’t know whether it has any staying power but it’s concerning nonetheless. It’s hard to say that Trump is an anomaly when there are others out there.