It’s…January 8.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has ordered the federal government to take control of policing in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, after hundreds of hardcore supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed the country’s congress, presidential palace and supreme court.

Gee. Our fascists missed a trick, they just stormed the congress. If only they’d thought to take on the supreme court and the White House too maybe they would have won. The White House would have welcomed them and handed over the keys.

“What we are witnessing is a terrorist attack,” the news anchor Erick Bang announced on the GloboNews television network as word of the upheaval spread. “The three buildings have been invaded by coup-mongering terrorists.”

Shocking video footage showed the pro-Bolsonaro militants sprinting up the ramp into the Palácio do Planalto, the presidential offices, roaming the building’s corridors and vandalising the nearby supreme court, whose windows had been smashed.

We live in horrible times. Fascists are vying with global warming to see who can destroy everything first.

Lula, a veteran leftist, was sworn in as Brazil’s new president last Sunday in celebrations attended by hundreds of thousands of Brazilians.

But thousands of pro-Bolsonaro extremists have refused to accept Lula’s narrow victory in October’s election, spending recent weeks camping outside army bases across the country and calling for a military coup.

All too familiar.

Military police in Brasília were conspicuous by their absence and the mobs faced little opposition as they marched towards the three branches of government.

Lula said capital law enforcement bodies showed “incompetence, bad faith or malice” and promised swift action. He vowed to return to the capital on Sunday and visit the three buildings under attack.

By the end of the afternoon, authorities appeared to have retaken control of some of the buildings, with GloboNews reporting 150 people had been arrested. TV footage showed dozens of people handcuffed and lying on the ground watched over by law enforcement officers.

Reichstag. Congress. Palácio do Planalto.

Observers have spent months warning that Bolsonaro hardliners might stage a South American version of the US’s Capitol invasion in the hope of overturning Lula’s win. During his tumultuous four-year administration, Bolsonaro repeatedly hinted that a military takeover might be in the works and battled to undermine Brazil’s internationally respected electronic voting system.

…

Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain whose main international ally was Trump, flew out of Brazil on the eve of Lula’s inauguration and is currently in Florida.

Florida. Naturally.

H/t What a Maroon