Greg Grandin — Still Selling Neoliberal Unicorns: The US Applauds the Coup in Brazil, Calls It Democracy

Washington now has compliant compradores in power in Argentina and Brazil—and perhaps soon in Venezuela.…Brazil’s is the third Latin American coup on Obama’s watch. All three were “constitutional coups,” using the fig leaf of legality to oust presidents who ran policies slightly ajar to the interests of local and international elites. Honduras in 2009 and Paraguay in 2012 were low-hanging fruit, small countries with outsized oligarchies, where mild reformers were easily dispatched. But Washington’s reaction to those two coups set the pattern for its response now to Brazil: Watch, wait, and quietly encourage the coup plotters, giving them time to consolidate a new order until recognition seems a reasonable course. In Honduras, in particular, Hillary Clinton as Obama’s secretary of state was instrumental in legitimizing the coup’s subsequent death-squad regime.…

The Nation
Still Selling Neoliberal Unicorns: The US Applauds the Coup in Brazil, Calls It Democracy
Greg Grandin

See also

Defend Democracy Press
Brazil: Coup or Fiasco?

Immanuel Wallerstein
ht Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism