A president could share personal rapport with street activists yet still fail them politically

Evidence

Mayara and other members of the MPL sat down with Dilma Rousseff in Brasília on June 24. It went about as you would expect, Mayara thought, considering that their movement’s goals were pretty clear, and the president couldn’t change national policy in a single meeting. Arriving in that conference room with the president that day, Mayara realized that despite their political differences, Dilma was “our kind of people.” The president realized immediately that the exhausted activists were famished and got someone to feed them some Brazilian cheesy bread. Unlike Haddad, who always came across as academic and aloof, Dilma had the bearing of a fighter, just like them. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 437

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Election-centered grassroots mobilization structurally demobilizes activists after winning — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 617

Broader Connections

• Election-centered grassroots mobilization structurally demobilizes activists after winning #complicates (0.72) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 617