Populism is spreading across the world

As the bad breath of the alcoholic that drinks away its sorrow and unhappiness in ignorance, to wake up years later from numbness only to find a broken marriage, a divided family and huge debts

It jumped from Europe, intoxicating France, Italy, Sweden, Holland and finally BREXITTED to the US. Now it TRUMPJUMPED to Brazil, where the people chose a guy that says things like :

‘“I won’t rape you because you don’t deserve it”, to a respected member of Congress

This guy is now the example for the 210 million Brazilians, the 7th global economy, the 4th biggest democracy

From what mess Brazil and its 50 million voters for Bolsonaro will wake up out years later from now? How severe will that political hangover last? And more urgent: how will the 46% of voters for the working party survive a populist leader?

Populism is emotional politics for the people

Tapping into not being heard, anger, and the strongest of all: FEAR
Populism turns against democracy while being part of it
It is underbelly rhetoric's of the destructive kind
It's a victory of fear
The thing that makes people small, ignorant and stuck in ego

Fear of being overrun by Immigrants
Fear of losing your job
Fear of not being able to keep up with the accelerating debt culture
Fear of violence & unsafety in the streets
Fear of Positive Change
Fear of change in general
Fear creates separation, first of all of the mind and the heart

Populist leaders will never bring solutions
will never strive for unity and bringing two fighting parts together
They misuse the big dissatisfaction, fear and lack of direction that casts its shadow over big parts of the world

like a huge dark tsunami of HATE

Populist leaders are modern day vampires

Like the blood for Dracula, they need more hate, more separation, more despair, more fear to last longer in their dark corners of human conscience. The truth is, we all only can massively step into the light when they do, no longer afraid to be evaporated by light and love.

The Facts

With 60.000 killings each year and counting, Brasil is not the safest place on earth to reside. There are even apps like Fogo Cruzado that tell you the nearest shoot-out. A lot of people are sick of this, and hold the state responsible to give security. And that makes perfect sense.

Add up the fact that BOLSO’s political opponent LULA has F***** up badly. Former working party charismatic leader LULA has gone to jail January 2018 for wide-scale corruption. In jail he got more votes than Bolsonaro and even when the majority of Brazilians love you and your name is LULA, you can’t get away with filling your pockets while people get shot by the dozen per hour.

This mix is the perfect soil for the Strong Man scenario.

Present the people in a very young democracy with an ex military Muscle Man that will wipe out the streets from gangs and fight corruption and you will get a sense why the country wants to try a new dance, moving from a left wing Bossa Lula to the extreme right wing Bolsonaro.

The promise of safety through an Iron arm did the JOB. That this Iron arm can turn into an iron fist that hits all of Brazil’s population in the face by becoming a real dictator is the risk the Brazilians seem willing to take, as long as they can feel safe in the streets.

This scenario is not that far fetched considering the fact that Bolso’s running up mate is also an ex-military general, and the fact that Populist leaders are very often Machiavellian driven, narcissistic power hungry super ego’s that once in power, will do as a true vampire much as everything to stay in power. This possible reality would call out for years of economic instability, international sanctions and unpreventable financial fall out potential leading to crises that we have seen in for example Argentina.

What is the real root problem?

Definition of Populism : The guy that is owning 98 balls, tells the middle class that owns 1 ball: “Hey, that Immigrant is stealing your last ball”

I believe that much from today's unrest, dissatisfaction, fear, hate and separation comes from THE UNBALANCED distribution of wealth, accelerating culture of debt that has become modern day slavery, lack of distribution of knowledge, education and resources, and overall economic systems that are getting over their expiry date. Populists are masters in putting the attention somewhere else, not at the root problem. They point their fingers at immigrants, tell the people that they are stealing the last ball. They make a big drama, shut down governments and fire people when they don’t get their way. This is all taking the attention away from the root problem and the real thieves.

When the population of the Favela’s earn more money, get more changes and education than the young guys might choose life over gangs. Mexico gives the example where Andrés Obrador is looking at solving the horrific culture of drug & gangs related violence in his country at the root level. By spending more money on education and jobs for the lower classes. He is even looking into legalizing grass! Mexico has the experience of Calderon from 2006–2012 who sent truckloads of the army into the gang-dominated slums to defeat the evil there, unleashing an unprecedented wave of violence. Researchers discovered that this caused more violence than necessary. Is Brazil awaiting the same faith? Sadly the world cup soccer has already passed and the eyes of the world are on other parts of the world in crisis.

For now, we know a few things

1. Brazil has 60.000 homicides a year and people are sick of this
2. Former working party leader LULA drowned himself in corruption while he could have embodied social and economic change, considering his massive support from the people
3. Brazil has chosen the StrongMan scenario, following the worldwide rise of populism
4. For real change, we probably need to look at the root level
5. Populist leaders are not interested in bringing solutions, they make things a lot worse
6. The upside is that they often turn into public comical characters or at least free daily entertainment while reaching an absurd level of stupidity to stay on track with populist momentum.

The dark night of humanities soul

How to turn around or change the unbalanced distribution of wealth? When this is really one of the root causes (it creates poverty in general, lack of education, stimulates crime etc). For this to change we need radical economic system change. We need to turn pyramids around. That won’t happen overnight, but designs are woven of new stories for humankind to believe in. We are stepping into an era of technology, and things like the blockchain and cryptocurrencies might be the game changer in the long run. When we lose faith in our political systems, and when populism is our last dramatic desperate try. When that fails, we are thrown upon ourselves. This can lead to anarchist movements, civil wars, gangs dominating complete cities and more TERMINATOR science fiction landscapes become reality. And when finally those shadows are cast away from humanities dark night of the soul, then hopefully a worldwide time for light, love, unity, responsible leadership and care for our mother earth might come.

For this people have the choice to step out of VICTIMHOOD into EMPOWERMENT, and WE as the people can FIX the country ourselves through for example decentralized networks and self-driven sustainable communities. All change comes from WITHIN as the Dalai Lama tweeted in 2012.

But it is only when all countries and nations that are suffering in darkness come out of that darkness, that we know the time has arrived and feel that the design of big system changes are revealing itself like magic Nordic lights at our darkening horizons

To lead the way into liberation from fear
thriving self-sustainable communities
gift and share economic principles
empowerment from spirit and truth
change into a new paradigm
a new story for humanity

And Brazil can swing again in innocent playfulness

Lucien Lecarme, November 2018

More about our ‘Zeitgeist’ and a hero’s journey from fear and control into transformation, love and empowerment in my future novel ‘Powerspot’: soon @ Amazon