Panem et circenses no longer working as planed, at least in South America?

And yet:
“Less than four days before it hosts the opening game of the World Cup, São Paulo became the scene of protests, street fires and teargas on Monday as striking subway workers brought chaos to the city.
The strike – which disrupted half the metro stations and worsened traffic in South America’s most populous city – was the latest headache for organisers as national teams from the United States, Spain and Argentina flew in for the start of the tournament on Thursday.”

“Brazil’s government already faces the threat of street protests by Brazilians opposed to the high cost of hosting the tournament. Massive demonstrations broke out last year during a warm-up for the World Cup and have continued on a smaller scale, sometimes with violence.”

Might it be that ordinary people are not that dumb as some of us think them to be?
In fact this lesson has been taught to us time and again so I only hope this instance we’ll figure it out less painfully that the French did in 1789.