For those not in the know, Brazil is going to be having a presidential election this year. The reason the title of this thread is what it is relates to the scandals that engulf all three of the current and past presidents: Current President Michel Temer, and past Presidents (in order of most recently in office) Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula was found guilty and began serving his 12-year jail sentence for accepting bribes in early April, maintaining his innocence and that his investigation and trial were politically motivated to prevent him from running in this year's election.

There are few countries as publicly wrestling with corruption allegations in explicit quid pro quo deals between politicians and companies as Brazil.

If you're interested in a pretty decent introduction into this wild ride, the wikipedia article on Operation Car Wash--and that is how this scandal gets referred to--is a good place to start.

So, using publicly available evidence (in Portuguese if you have to), what role does corruption play in the highest political offices in Brazil, and how can Brazil begin rebuilding what seems to be a clearly shattered reputation?

One of the more looming stories over the American political climate these days that takes over pretty much everything else is the special investigation into the Trump campaign and potential collusion with Russian attempts to influence the US presidential election of 2016. There is a lot of information in the public domain about this story, including most recently Mueller seeking a revision of Paul Manafort's home confinement release after alleging that Manafort attempted to contact potential witnesses to conceal evidence relating to the various charges he faces.

You can find a decent overview of most of the publicly available information on the related wikipedia page.

So let's try to wrangle with all that public information. Please list, vet, and weigh the evidence you think is most important when it comes to the Special Investigation of the Trump campaign. Does it look like collusion with Russian electioneering happened or is this story mostly about finding incidental crimes of sloppy political first timers? What role do you think Russia played or tried to play in the 2016 election based on this publicly available evidence? What evidence would you like to see before making a judgment?

the reason why reddit feels so fractured is because all sides of the political compass are so split. id like to see one single ~politics channel and see how it works out, if everyone can keep it civil.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is stepping down, and there are rumors he intends to run for office and possibly the presidency. A frequent Trump critic, he would presumably be running as a Democrat if he entered the 2020 race. He seems to be staking out a position in the center of the party, criticizing the idea of a government jobs program or single-payer healthcare.

Would you vote for him in a primary or general election? Does America need another businessman (albeit a successful one) president? How economically progressive should the Democrat's candidate be? Discuss.

I've seen a few remarks here and there that have implied sort of matter-of-factly that places like /r/The_Donald have no redeeming value, the community members are awful (and undesirable to have here), their ideas are all reprehensible, etc. I assume that this is mostly just due to the demographic coming primarily from popular reddit mod teams where being anti-Trump is sort of an unspoken requirement - but I don't really know for certain.

It reminds me a little of this woman in a class i had once, who spoke to me about atheists, assumed I was christian just as a matter of course. It's kind of an awkward situation to find yourself in. I don't identify as an atheist, but if someone is mildly insulting atheists, it's uncomfortable. You have to be a covert conservative (or covert center-right, or even left-leaning Trump voter) or else you risk being blasted/flamed/mocked/etc. in places like reddit.

Part of what attracted me to Tildes was the sales pitch that it is to be a community for civil conversation, no hate-speech/bigotry. I think that's a perfect environment for political discussion - far more than shit-flinging and nuclear downvoting on /r/politics. So even if I'm the only MAGA person here, maybe there's a chance we can actually have civil conversations on topics we might initially disagree on...?

Edit: wow! Really happy to have these conversations with folks. Sad that i haven't encountered any fellow (public) Trump voters/supporters yet but very pleased that things have been civil as advertised. ;) Apologies for slow responses, trying to give proper thought and consideration to all the comments!

Edit2: gotta head to bed. sorry to anyone i haven't responded to questions from. feeling a bit like a novelty "And here's our token Trump voter. ha ha, he sure is a quirky one, isn't he, that crazy dictator-enabler!" xP. I'll try to answer any questions I've missed tomorrow. Sleep well, all (well, all who are going to sleep before I get back).

Edit3: Thanks for the open engagement, all you people who live in a different reality!

Still a bit bummed there aren't any MAGA friends here yet, but I've been blown away by how cordial most of you have been (i hope we can retain this culture into the future of the site). For those who are just coming in and don't want to read everything, I'd say a tl;dr of the conversations I've had below is:

• most people here want to engage with others on important topics without the shit flinging,
• some people express disbelief that someone can not be a bigot or racist and vote for Donald Trump,
• I've been repeating in various conversations the Laurel and Yanny thing is a great metaphor for the polarized camps experiencing different realities, seeing different movies on the same screen.

I'm continuing to try to reply to questions, and in the spirit of not provoking heated emotions I have been trying not to argue any of my political beliefs except that both sides are seeing different realities.

Recent news has made it plain that President Trump intends on going through with his much discussed plan of implementing tariffs on many sources of steel and aluminum imports to the US. This seem as good a time as any to ask a question that begs for evidence: Are trade wars good, and who benefits?

There is good reporting out there that analyzes the likely impact of this particular steel tariff, so feel free to find it and use it in your own argument (there are figures the administration has produced and figures that other studies have produced using the same source material). There are also plenty of other tariffs out there throughout history that have been studied and discussed. Because these sources can sometimes conflict, please be aware that your choice of what sources to use may need to be justified.

As an Ontarian in the Oshawa riding, I’m undecided. I really don’t see that any of the big three (NDP, Liberal, PC) deserve my vote. I wonder what other Canadians in Ontario think of the upcoming election.

Edit - More

• Polling details like this CBC aggregate site suggest the PC Party is leading as of June 2nd.
• The Toronto Star has endorsed the NDP Party.
• The Ontario Liberals have given up on winning.