New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlo Sep 11, 2025 PhilosophyTom Cheetham, PhD, is author of several books, including Imaginal Love: the Meanings of Imagination in Henry Corbin and James Hillman; All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin and the Angelic Function of Beings; Green Man, Earth Angel: The Prophetic Tradition and the Battle for the Soul of the World; and The World Turned Inside Out: Henry Corbin and the Angel Out Ahead. In this interview, rebooted from 2019, he describes the life and scholarship of the French scholar, Henry Corbin, particularly with reference to Iranian mysticism and his concept of the imaginal. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:03:18 Mundus Imaginalis 00:08:34 Henry Corbin 00:15:34 Imagination and imaginal 00:27:10 Islamic mysticism 00:42:16 The dark side 01:00:11 Dualisms 01:05:45 Conclusion New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on June 29, 2023)
Understanding the Afterlife with Dan Drasin
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlov Sep 10, 2025 Daniel Drasin is a cinematographer and editor, known for Calling Earth (2018), Scole: The Afterlife Experiment (2021) and Like, Totally… (2004). He is author of A New Science of the Afterlife: Space, Time, and the Consciousness Code. In this video, rebooted from 2023, he shares insights from his long career as a paranormal student and researcher, from the 1960s to the present day. 00:00 Introduction 03:09 The Mothman prophecies 09:57 Full body materialization 15:24 Afterlife frequencies 28:47 Impossible but true 34:03 Parapsychology PhD 38:17 Afterlife communicators 48:55 Conclusion New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on June 27, 2023)
Clarence Darrow on truth and ignorant men
“Chase after the truth like all hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails.”
“I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure—that is all that agnosticism means”.
― Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow (April 18, 1857 – March 13, 1938 ) was an American lawyer who became famous in the 19th century for high-profile representations of trade union causes, and in the 20th century for several criminal matters, including the Leopold and Loeb murder trial, the Scopes “monkey” trial, and the Ossian Sweet defense. Wikipedia
AI: Did Charlie Kirk call for the release of the Epstein files?
Google AI
Did Charlie Kirk call for the release of the Epstein files?
Yes, in July 2025, Charlie Kirk publicly called for the release of the Epstein files and criticized the handling of the matter by the Justice Department under the Trump administration
. Kirk was responding to a growing sense of frustration within the “Gen Z MAGA” base over the lack of transparency surrounding the case.
However, his position shifted shortly after a phone call with President Trump.
Timeline of events
- July 2025: Kirk was critical of the Justice Department’s messaging regarding the Epstein investigation and joined bipartisan calls for full transparency by publicly demanding the release of all related files.
- Late July 2025: After a call from President Trump, Kirk publicly backtracked, stating he was “done talking about Epstein for the time being” and would trust the administration to handle the issue.
- Mid-July 2025: Following his change in stance, Kirk’s communications director issued a clarification that Kirk was not finished with the topic, but that the next move was up to the administration.
- September 2025: Kirk was assassinated, and the events surrounding his statements on the Epstein case and his relationship with Trump became part of the political coverage following his death.
AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more
AI: Is Tyler Robinson a Groyper?
Google AI
Is Tyler Robinson a Groyper?
While online speculation linked Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, to the Groyper movement, his political affiliation was officially listed as “unaffiliated”
. Authorities found anti-fascist messages on the bullet casings and have so far refrained from labeling Robinson a Groyper.
Details surrounding Tyler Robinson and the Groyper speculation:
- Online rumors: After conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in September 2025, unverified social media claims and Reddit threads linked the suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, to the Groyper movement. These rumors were based on alleged comments and online behavior attributed to Robinson, including a Facebook photo that may reference a Groyper meme.
- Reported admiration for Fuentes: According to a journalist citing Utah officials and police interviews, Robinson reportedly admired Nick Fuentes, the leader of the Groyper movement. Fuentes is a far-right, white nationalist who previously led “Groyper Wars” against Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA.
- Conflicting messages: The motives for the shooting remain unclear due to conflicting information regarding Robinson’s political leanings. Authorities reported that anti-fascist messages were found on the bullet casings, and a relative stated Robinson “thought both political sides were contributing to a country being in a worse place”.
Note: The Groyper movement is an alt-right, white nationalist, and Christian nationalist activist group led by Nick Fuentes. They are known for disrupting mainstream conservative events and promoting white nationalist ideas.
AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more
Groypers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the cartoon after which the group is named, see Pepe the Frog § Groyper.
The Groypers, sometimes called the Groyper Army, are a group of alt-right, white nationalist, and Christian nationalist[5] activists led by Nick Fuentes. Members of the group have attempted to introduce alt-right politics into mainstream conservatism in the United States and participated in the January 6 United States Capitol attack and the protests leading up to it. They have targeted other conservative groups and individuals whose agendas they view as too moderate and insufficiently nationalist.[6][7] The Groyper movement has been described as white nationalist, homophobic, nativist, fascist, sexist, antisemitic, and an attempt to rebrand the declining alt-right movement.[4][8][9][10]
Groypers are a loosely defined group of Fuentes’s followers and fans.[11][4] After him, there is no clear second in the Groyper hierarchy. Groypers are named after a cartoon amphibian named “Groyper“, a variant of the Internet meme Pepe the Frog. In February 2021, the Groyper movement splintered between Fuentes and Patrick Casey over fears of infiltration by federal informants and doxing at the 2021 America First Political Action Conference, held by Fuentes. Jaden McNeil of America First Students joined in support of Fuentes’s conference and accused Casey of disloyalty to Fuentes.[12][13] In May 2022, McNeil distanced himself from Fuentes in an “interpersonal clash of egos” following conflict over his former position as treasurer of Fuentes’s America First Foundation.[14]
Ideology
Although Groypers present themselves as defenders of “Christian conservatism”, “traditional values”, and “American nationalism”, their ideology departs sharply from traditional conservative principles. Rather than conserving inherited institutions or practicing prudence and incremental reform, they advance a racialized politics that appeals to xenophobia and resentment.[15] They reject more mainstream conservative organizations as insufficiently nationalist and pro-white, and employ tactics of entryism and radicalization such as gradually introducing their targets to increasingly extreme ideas.[16] Groypers are widely recognized as a white nationalist, antisemitic, and homophobic movement.[17][3][18]
Fuentes has said he has been “oppressed” by “the Jews” and blamed the Jewish community for antisemitism, claiming that matters “tend to go from zero to sixty” and that “the reason is them”. He has said that matters would get “a lot uglier” for their community if they do not begin to support “people like us”.[19][20] According to the Anti-Defamation League, Groypers blame the mainstream conservative movement as well as the political left for what they view as “destroying white America”. They oppose immigration and globalism. Groypers support “traditional” values and Christianity and oppose feminism and LGBTQ rights.[3]
Of the relationship between Groypers and the Republican Party, Fuentes has said, “We are the right-wing flank of the Republican Party”. He has summarized his political ambitions by saying, “We have got to be on the right, dragging [moderate Republicans] kicking and screaming into the future. Into a truly reactionary party”.[21] In 2022, Fuentes advocated for a “white uprising” to bring Donald Trump back to power and “never leave” and for the U.S. to “stop having elections” and abolish Congress.[22][23]
Background
Groypers are named after a cartoon amphibian named “Groyper“, a variant of the Internet meme Pepe the Frog. Groyper is depicted as a rotund, green, frog-like creature, often sitting with its chin resting on interlocked fingers.[24][25] There is some disagreement about the details: Groyper is variously said to be a depiction of Pepe,[8] a different character from Pepe but of the same species, or a toad.[24] The Groyper meme was used as early as 2015 and became popular in 2017.[15]
In 2018, a group of computer scientists studying hateful speech on Twitter observed the Groyper image being used frequently in account avatars among accounts identified as “hateful” in their dataset. The researchers observed that the profiles tended to be anonymous and collectively tweeted primarily about politics, race, and religion. They also found that the users were not “lone wolves” and could be identified as a community with a high network centrality.[26] The same year, Right Wing Watch reported that Massachusetts congressional hopeful Shiva Ayyadurai had created a campaign pin featuring a variation of the Groyper image, which RWW described as an attempt to appeal to far-right activists on 4chan, Gab, and Twitter who had adopted the meme.[27]
Fuentes’s followers began to be known as Groypers beginning in 2019. They are also sometimes called “Nickers”.[4][28] In September 2019, Ashley St. Clair, a “brand ambassador” for the conservative student group Turning Point USA, was photographed at an event featuring several allegedly white nationalist and alt-right figures, including Fuentes, Jacob Wohl, and Anthime Gionet, better known as “Baked Alaska“. After Right Wing Watch brought the photographs to its attention, Turning Point USA issued a statement that said it had severed ties with St. Clair and condemned white nationalism as “abhorrent and un-American”.[29][30] At the 2019 Politicon convention, Fuentes tried to attend several Turning Point events featuring its founder Charlie Kirk, including a line to take photos with Kirk and Kirk’s debate with Kyle Kulinski of The Young Turks. Security repeatedly barred him from being allowed near Kirk, and Fuentes accused Kirk of suppressing him to avoid a confrontation, as Fuentes had grown critical of Kirk’s positions, which he believes are too weak.[25]
Groyper War
In the fall of 2019, Charlie Kirk launched a college speaking tour with Turning Point USA titled “Culture War”, featuring himself and guests such as Rand Paul, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Lara Trump, and Dan Crenshaw.[3] In retaliation for the firing of St. Clair and the Politicon incident, Fuentes began organizing a social media campaign asking his followers to go to Kirk’s events and ask provocative and controversial leading questions about his stances on immigration, Israel, and LGBT rights to expose Kirk as a “fake conservative”. At a Culture War event hosted by Ohio State University on October 29, 11 out of 14 questions were asked by Groypers.[28] Their questions included “Can you prove that our white European ideals will be maintained if the country is no longer made up of white European descendants?”[31] They asked Kirk’s co-host Rob Smith, a gay, black Iraq War veteran, “How does anal sex help us win the culture war?”[31][better source needed] Fuentes’s social media campaign against Kirk became known as the “Groyper Wars”.[8][24] Kirk, Smith, and others at Turning Point USA, including Benny Johnson, began calling the questioners white supremacists and antisemites.[25][32]
Another Turning Point USA event the Groypers targeted was a promotional event for Donald Trump Jr.’s book Triggered, featuring Trump, Kirk, and Guilfoyle at the University of California, Los Angeles in November 2019. Anticipating further questions from Fuentes’s followers, it was announced that the event’s Q&A portion would be canceled, which led to heckling and boos from the mostly pro-Trump audience.[33] The disruptions forced the event, originally scheduled to last two hours, to end after 30 minutes.[34][35][11][36]
Groypers’ targets for heckling quickly expanded beyond Kirk and Turning Point USA[24][37] to other mainstream conservative groups and individuals, which they sometimes collectively call “Conservative Inc.”, including Young America’s Foundation and its student outreach branch Young Americans for Freedom, which included such speakers as Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire and Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch.[6][37] Groypers’ questions often focus on United States–Israel relations, immigration policy, affirmative action, and LGBTQ conservatives.[7][38][8] They regularly use antisemitic dog-whistles, including questions about the USS Liberty incident and references to the “dancing Israelis” conspiracy theory alleging Israeli involvement in the September 11 attacks.[11][3]
Groyper War 2
In August 2024, Fuentes began a “digital war” against Trump’s presidential campaign, which he dubbed “Groyper War 2”, referencing his followers’ activities in 2019.[39] In response to Trump’s poor polling, Fuentes began calling on his followers to “bring the energy with memes, edits, replies, and trolls” aimed at pressuring Trump’s campaign to adopt further-right positions on race and immigration, as well as urging Trump to fire his campaign advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.[40] In addition to directing his followers to make their demands trend on X (formerly Twitter) and Truth Social, Fuentes threatened to “escalate pressure in the real world”, urging followers to withhold their votes and protest Trump rallies in battleground states.[39]
Shortly after initiating this effort, Fuentes took credit for Trump’s rehiring of Corey Lewandowski as a senior campaign advisor. An anonymous source cited by The Washington Post claimed that Fuentes was making it “far more difficult for Trump” to make changes to his campaign “if it looks like he’s responding to the groypers”.[39]
A senior researcher for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue speculated that Fuentes’s “crude” attempts at platform manipulation could be a blueprint for more sophisticated actors, such as hostile states, to engage in foreign election interference due to the lack of enforcement actions taken by Twitter and Truth Social in response to Fuentes’s brief influence campaign.[41][42]
Other activities
In December 2019, Fuentes held the Groyper Leadership Summit in Florida. A small group attended in person, and others joined via livestream. The event was held at the same time and in the same city as Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit (SAS); Groypers argued with SAS attendees outside their venue, and Fuentes, Patrick Casey, and some Groypers were removed from the SAS venue after attempting to enter. At the Groyper Leadership Summit, Fuentes, Casey, and former InfoWars contributor Jake Lloyd spoke about the Groypers’ strategy and ideology.[43] Outside a venue where a Turning Point USA event was being held, Fuentes crossed paths with Ben Shapiro, who was on his way to the event with his wife and children. Fuentes confronted Shapiro over his past public speaking comments. Shapiro refused to acknowledge him.[44] Fuentes faced widespread condemnation from politicians and various pundits—including Nikki Haley, Meghan McCain, Sebastian Gorka, Megyn Kelly, and Michael Avenatti—for confronting Shapiro while he was with his family.[45]
In January 2020, Groyper and former leader of Kansas State University‘s Turning Point USA chapter Jaden McNeil formed the Kansas State University organization America First Students. The group, which shares a name with Fuentes’ America First podcast, was conceived at the Groyper Leadership Summit, and Groyper leaders have helped promote it. The America First Students organization, which says it formed “in defense of Christian values, strong families, closed borders, and the American worker”, is considered to promote the Groyper movement.[9][10]
In February 2020, Fuentes spoke at several events held as rival events to the Conservative Political Action Conference. One of these, hosted by the online publication National File, featured Fuentes, Alex Jones of InfoWars, and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes.[46][47] Fuentes hosted the first annual America First Political Action Conference, which included such speakers as Patrick Casey, former Daily Caller author Scott Greer, and Malkin.[48]
Groypers are very active online, particularly on Twitter, and have engaged in targeted harassment.[28] Financial Times reported that many Groypers use “deceptively anodyne” Twitter biographies, describing themselves in terms that downplay their extremism, like “Christian conservative”.[49] In April 2020, The Daily Dot reported that Fuentes and other Groypers had begun to move to TikTok, where they streamed live and used the “duet” feature to respond to Trump supporters. Groypers particularly targeted one left-wing teenage girl for harassment, first on TikTok and then on other platforms.[49][50] Fuentes and some other Groyper accounts were banned from TikTok shortly after the Daily Dot article was published.[51]
January 6 United States Capitol attack
Groypers were present at the January 6 United States Capitol attack and prominent among those who participated in the early waves of attack on the Capitol.[52] Exact numbers are not known, but several were arrested. In February 2021, the Anti-Defamation League reported that it had identified ten Groypers or related white supremacists involved in the riots.[53]
Fuentes and Casey were on the Capitol steps and celebrated the temporary disruption of Congress, but have not been charged.[54][55] Both were subpoenaed by the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in January 2022 for their role in planning the attack.[55]
Riley June Williams of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was accused of invading Nancy Pelosi‘s office and stealing her laptop and gavel and of generally accelerating the attack. She was tried and found guilty of six charges, including a felony count of civil disorder. On March 23, 2023, Williams was sentenced to three years in prison with three years of probation and fined.[56][57][58]
Christian Secor of Costa Mesa, California, was at the Capitol, where he allegedly flew the Groypers flag. He was convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder, assault, and resisting arrest, and sentenced to 42 months in prison.[59]
Joseph Brody of Springfield, Virginia, and four others acted as a group that assisted the mob “in using a metal barricade against a U.S. Capitol Police officer, knocking the officers back as he attempted to secure the North Door”. He was convicted of assaulting a police officer, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers, causing bodily injury, interfering with a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder, and obstruction of an official proceeding.[60][61][62]
David Dempsey of Los Angeles, California, received a 20-year sentence for attacking several law enforcement officers on January 6. This was the second-longest sentence for any of those involved in the insurrection. Before sentencing, Dempsey apologized to the police officers in the courtroom, saying he had a “profound sense of regret”, but as he was led out of the room after sentencing he made a hand sign associated with the Groyper movement.[63]
Thomas Carey of Pittsburgh, Ohio, Gabriel Chase of Gainesville, Florida, Jon Lizak of Cold Spring Harbor, New York, and Paul Ewald Lovley of Halethorpe, Maryland, all pleaded guilty to demonstrating in a Capitol Building and were each fined $500.[64][65][66]
Groyper influencer Anthime Gionet, known as Baked Alaska, was arrested for his role in storming the Capitol building, which he live streamed. According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, “During the riot, he wore Pit Viper sunglasses, which have since been adopted as a symbol by the Groypers.”[67][68]
Tristan Sartor of Ruffs Dale, Pennsylvania, was charged with criminally entering a restricted building and attempting to “impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business” at the Capitol.[69][70]
Political activism
The Groyper movement has repeatedly failed to gain political traction, often being disavowed by the politicians it has attempted to support. Congressman Paul Gosar, the keynote speaker at Fuentes’s AFPAC II in 2021, disavowed Fuentes and his followers the next day while addressing CPAC.[71] At AFPAC III in 2022, several political figures whom Fuentes claimed were slated to speak, including Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and former acting Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan, did not attend and disavowed the event upon learning of Fuentes’s views.[72][73] The conference’s keynote speaker, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, later said she did not know who Fuentes was and, upon learning of his views, condemned him.[74]
Of the AFPAC III speakers who did not rescind their support for Fuentes, only two ran for major office: Lieutenant Governor of Idaho Janice McGeachin and Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers. Rogers won a competitive primary that year and was reelected, but she was censured for her remarks at the conference calling for political violence.[75] McGeachin, who ran for governor of Idaho that year, lost the primary to incumbent Governor Brad Little by a 20-point margin.
One of the candidates Fuentes endorsed in the 2022 midterms who later disavowed his endorsement was Joe Kent, who ran for the 3rd congressional district in Washington.[76] In response to Kent’s disavowal, Fuentes began organizing an online campaign against him, but Kent won the Republican nomination and defeated incumbent Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler.[77]
Fuentes and the Groyper movement later supported Laura Loomer‘s candidacy for Florida’s 11th congressional district in 2022.[78] On the night of the primary, Fuentes attended Loomer’s election watch party, and they were filmed sharing a toast as results came in that seemed to suggest Loomer would defeat incumbent Congressman Daniel Webster; Loomer toasted “to the hostile takeover of the Republican Party”.[79] When additional results came in confirming Loomer’s loss to Webster by 7 points, she claimed without evidence in a speech to her supporters that her loss was due to voter fraud.[80][81]
In late 2022 and early 2023, the Groyper movement shifted away from its longtime position of supporting Trump and instead began promoting Kanye West‘s presidential campaign. West brought Fuentes to a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Trump, which generated significant controversy and raised Fuentes’s profile; Trump later disavowed Fuentes, saying he was not initially aware of Fuentes’s views.[82][83] West’s campaign soon included other figures in the Groyper movement, including Milo Yiannopoulos,[84] Ali Alexander,[85] and Rumble streamer Nico Kenn De Balinthazy, better known by his online alias “Sneako”.[86] Many Groypers, including fellow streamers on Fuentes’s website Cozy.tv, began using their platforms to promote West’s antisemitic views.[87] Two Cozy streamers, Dalton Clodfelter and Tyler Russell, began streaming themselves harassing students at college campuses with a table display reading “Ye is Right—Change my Mind”, a slogan that derived from a college tour by right-wing commentator Steven Crowder.[88][89] Jewish student groups and allies frequently protested these events, playing music on loudspeakers and chanting in order to drown out the streamers’ speeches.[90] The planned college tour was canceled after less than a month after Clodfelter lost the funding for both the tour and the Rumble channel associated with it.[91]
On May 4, 2023, it was reported that West had fired Fuentes and Alexander, the latter of whom had become embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal involving young men and underage boys, and rehired Yiannopoulos, who had since split from Fuentes and was the first person to leak the allegations against Alexander.[92][93]
Reactions
The Groyper Wars earned widespread media attention after the UCLA incident with Donald Trump Jr. Chadwick Moore of Spectator USA commented that the ordeal revealed deep divisions within the American right among young voters, particularly Generation Z. Moore claimed this divide is due to the Groypers viewing Charlie Kirk and others in the mainstream conservative movement as “snatching the baton and appointing themselves the guardians of 2016’s spoils”, despite holding beliefs that Fuentes and his followers believe conflict with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda.[94] Another Spectator author, Ben Sixsmith, claimed that Turning Point’s unwillingness to respond to controversial questions and use of insults to dismiss its critics revealed the organization’s hypocrisy after having “promoted themselves as the debate guys”.[95]
Several mainstream conservative commentators also weighed in. Addressing the increase in attention to the far-right due to the aggressive questioning of Kirk, Ben Shapiro gave a speech at Stanford University in which he attacked Fuentes (without naming him) and his followers as essentially a rebranded version of the alt-right.[96][97][98] Similarly, Dan Crenshaw called the questioners “alt-right 2.0”, while American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp said, “there is no place in our conservative movement for those interested in fomenting hate, mob violence, or racist propaganda.”[99] Conversely, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin wrote an article for American Greatness attacking Kirk’s immigration policies, particularly his stance that immigrants who graduate from U.S. universities should receive green cards.[100] After defending Fuentes and his followers, Malkin was fired as a speaker for Young America’s Foundation, a rival organization to Turning Point whose events Groypers had also targeted.[37][101] Malkin later called herself a mother figure to and leader of the Groypers.[102][103][104]
Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years in Prison for Plotting Coup in Brazil
Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted the former president of trying to cling to power after losing the 2022 election, including a plan to assassinate his opponent.
By Ana Ionova and Jack Nicas
Reporting from Brazil’s Supreme Court in the capital, Brasília
Sept. 11, 2025 (NYTimes.com)
Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro of overseeing a failed conspiracy to overturn the 2022 Brazilian election in a coup plot that included disbanding courts, empowering the military and assassinating the president-elect.
Four of the five justices weighing the case voted to convict Mr. Bolsonaro and seven co-conspirators, including his running mate, defense minister and Navy commander, in a forceful rebuke by one of the very institutions the men sought to overthrow.
Mr. Bolsonaro, 70, was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison, though his lawyers are likely to request house arrest because of his health problems.
The conviction is a landmark ruling for Latin America’s largest nation. In at least 15 coups and coup attempts with links to the military since Brazil overthrew its monarchy in 1889, Thursday marked the first time the leaders of one of those plots have been convicted.
It also could deal a definitive blow to one of Latin America’s most important and influential political figures. Mr. Bolsonaro galvanized a right-wing movement that transformed Brazil into a more polarized and, in some ways, conservative nation — but his conviction now leaves the right without a clear leader.
At the same time, the ruling will very likely escalate the conflict between Brazil and the United States. President Trump had demanded that Brazil drop the charges against Mr. Bolsonaro, saying that, like him, the former Brazilian president was being politically persecuted for trying to reverse a rigged election.
The White House had sought to force Brazil to drop the case with steep tariffs, a trade investigation and severe sanctions against the Supreme Court justice leading it. Instead, several Brazilian justices criticized the U.S. attempts to intervene as they voted to convict.
Asked about Mr. Bolsonaro’s conviction, Mr. Trump told reporters in Washington on Thursday that he was “very unhappy about it. I know President Bolsonaro” and like him, he said. “I think it’s a terrible thing, very terrible. I actually think it’s very bad for Brazil.”
Mr. Bolsonaro’s conviction relied upon troves of evidence showing that he and his inner circle had spent months undermining voters’ confidence in Brazil’s elections systems and then, after narrowly losing the 2022 vote, attempted to find ways to keep him in power.
The plans envisaged declaring a state of emergency that would have dissolved the Supreme Court, annulled the election result and given the military sweeping powers. It also included a plot to assassinate Mr. Bolsonaro’s opponent, now the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Mr. Lula’s running mate; and Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice who had overseen the election and launched several investigations into Mr. Bolsonaro.
Mr. Bolsonaro denied the charges and said he had no knowledge of an assassination plot. Instead, he testified that he sought ways within Brazil’s Constitution to correct what he claimed was a stolen election. (A review by Brazil’s military found no evidence of electoral fraud.)
For months, Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies have called the case an abuse of power by the Supreme Court to politically oppress him and smother his movement.
ImageDuring Mr. Bolsonaro’s trial, security was tightened outside Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasília, the capital.Credit…Dado Galdieri for The New York Times
“He never intended to stage a coup d’état. This is effectively a political movement being judged, not just its leadership,” Mr. Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, said in an interview before the verdict. A conviction, he added, “will leave a scar on the court’s history.”
As the trial marched toward a verdict over the last two weeks, Mr. Bolsonaro found himself abandoned by some allies accused of plotting the coup alongside him. That included his former defense minister, whose lawyer claimed he had tried to persuade the former president to abandon the plans.
He also faced damaging testimony from his personal secretary and records showing that the assassination plot was printed out and brought to the presidential palace, among other evidence.
Much of the turmoil also played out publicly. Mr. Bolsonaro openly spread misinformation about voter fraud; Brazil’s highway police stopped voters in left-leaning districts on Election Day; and, a week after Mr. Lula’s inauguration, thousands of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Brazil’s halls of power in a failed bid to induce a military takeover.
ImageThe plot Mr. Bolsonaro was convicted of organizing included the assassination of his opponent, Mr. Lula, seen here campaigning for president in São Paulo in 2022.Credit…Victor Moriyama for The New York Times
As a result, Mr. Bolsonaro’s conviction was widely expected, a view reinforced by the makeup of the five-member panel of Supreme Court justices judging the case. In addition to Justice Moraes, whom Mr. Bolsonaro attacked openly, the panel includes a justice who was Mr. Lula’s former personal lawyer, and another who is Mr. Lula’s former justice minister and close ally.
That led Mr. Bolsonaro to place his faith in a Hail Mary from abroad: Mr. Trump.
For months, one of Mr. Bolsonaro’s sons has lobbied the White House to help his father avoid a prison sentence. Then, in July, Mr. Trump stepped in.
His government levied eye-watering 50 percent tariffs on Brazil that have pushed the nation toward China, and then it hit Justice Moraes with some of the harshest sanctions the United States has at its disposal, usually reserved for people who have committed human rights abuses.
The White House has cited Justice Moraes’ aggressive campaign to combat what he says are threats against Brazil’s democracy, including moves to jail people for threatening the court, censor voices online and block entire social networks across Brazil.
Even as Brazil has stood its ground, it is now bracing for further punitive measures in response to Mr. Bolsonaro’s conviction. The Trump administration has made clear that it is ready to continue the fight, casting both Mr. Trump and Mr. Bolsonaro as victims of a global attempt to muzzle conservative voices.
Mr. Bolsonaro, a former Army captain turned longtime congressman, was elected president in 2018, lifted to power by a wave of voter frustration over corruption and crime. At the time, his most potent adversary, Mr. Lula, was in prison on a corruption conviction that was later thrown out.
He transformed Brazil’s politics with his freewheeling, combative and sometimes belligerent style that included dismantling regulations, questioning the credibility of scientific findings, harshly attacking his opponents and praising the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985.
ImageJustice Alexandre de Moraes reads the charges during the opening session of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s trial at Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasília, in September.Credit…Dado Galdieri for The New York Times
While he and Mr. Trump came from starkly different backgrounds, the two men shared strikingly similar approaches to politics. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Bolsonaro pulled his nation’s conservative movement further to the right and remains its standard-bearer, evidenced by the large crowds that protested his prosecution across Brazil ahead of his conviction.
Opinion surveys show that nearly two-fifths of Brazil view his prosecution as unjust and that he would be the leading right-wing candidate in next year’s presidential election. A previous ruling in a separate case has barred Mr. Bolsonaro from running until the end of the decade. His conviction in the coup plot, if it stands, makes him ineligible to hold office ever again.
In Brazil, a country with a long history of leaders who have tried, and at times succeeded, to seize power through coups, Mr. Bolsonaro’s conviction was seen by many as a victory for democracy.
As he cast his vote, Justice Moraes insisted that the evidence showed Brazil had come dangerously close to being plunged back into a dictatorship similar to the one it had endured for more than two decades, because of the actions of “a political group that doesn’t know how to lose an election.”
“It’s impossible to trivialize this return to dark moments in history that we’ve already lived through,” Justice Moraes said. “And the evidence is abundant.”
In the sole dissent, one justice, Luiz Fux, absolved Mr. Bolsonaro and all but two of his seven collaborators in the plot. In a scathing 14-hour presentation of his vote — which at times lulled some, including Brazil’s top prosecutor, to sleep — he picked apart the evidence in the case and argued that it failed to link Mr. Bolsonaro and others to the coup plans.
ImageSupporters of Mr. Bolsonaro protest in Brasília, on Sunday. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Bolsonaro pulled his nation’s conservative movement further to the right.Credit…Dado Galdieri for The New York Times
“It would set a very serious precedent, it would be very dangerous to hold political agents responsible based on generic allegations,” Justice Fux said, while referencing, on more than one occasion, the ill-fitting glove that helped absolve O.J. Simpson.
And, offering a glimmer of hope to Mr. Bolsonaro, Justice Fux questioned why the case was not being weighed by the full bench of 11 Supreme Court justices, and claimed that the defense had been given too little time to review the evidence.
This, analysts say, could give Mr. Bolsonaro a window to appeal his conviction. Yet, given the makeup of the court, even a vote by the full bench would be expected to uphold the ruling.
In total, Mr. Bolsonaro’s crimes had carried a maximum sentence of 43 years. He had been awaiting the verdict under house arrest, watched closely by the police because the court deemed him a flight risk.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from Washington.
Ana Ionova is a contributor to The Times based in Rio de Janeiro, covering Brazil and neighboring countries.
Jack Nicas is The Times’s Mexico City bureau chief, leading coverage of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Justices Convict Brazil Ex-Leader. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
See more on: Jair Bolsonaro, Supreme Federal Court (Brazil), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Alexandre de Moraes, Donald Trump
Initial report on last weekend’s Prosperos Assembly in San Diego
Echoes of History
| Gwyllm Llwydd | Thu, Sep 11, 6:15 PM (20 hours ago) |  | |
| |||
I find that history doesn’t necessarily repeat, but it does echo. What we are seeing presently has played out in similar fashion before. – Gwyllm
Well, I have been thinking today about the Kirk incident. It had an echo to it in my old mind, going back to the lessons learned when I was a youngster. It even has a theme song.
Do not think for a moment that this was just a coincidence after Charlie Kirk called for the release of the Epstein Files.
Gee, it’s almost like the death of Kirk mirrors what brought about this:
For Reference:
The Eight Limbs of Yoga with Leanne Whitney
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Sep 8, 2025 Leanne Whitney, PhD, is author of Consciousness in Jung and Patanjali. She is a transformational coach and also teaches yoga philosophy to yoga teachers. She is also a regular Guest Host on New Thinking Allowed. In this video, rebooted from 2019, she discusses the meaning of the Sanskrit terms yama, niyama, pranayama, asana, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi — as well as related concepts such as drishti, kaivalya, samskara, vriti, samyama and avidya. She points out that the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali can be read from either a dualist or non-dualist point of view. From the non-dualist point of view, everything is brahman or consciousness. Enlightenment, therefore, is not something to be achieved. It is already everywhere. We play hide-and-go-seek with ourselves. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He currently serves as Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on November 22, 2019)
How to end factory farming
Lewis Bollard | TED2025
• April 2025
Factory farming is the greatest moral crisis we ignore, says farm animal welfare champion Lewis Bollard. He exposes the truth behind the “all natural” labels on your groceries and shows how technology and public pressure can uncover the unseen struggle of animals, drive the industry to reform and harness our collective capacity for moral progress. (Note: This talk contains graphic images.)
About the speaker
Lewis Bollard
Farm animal welfare champion