Andre Pagliarini is an assistant professor of history at Hampden-Sydney College and a faculty fellow at the Washington Brazil Office.
Donald Trump’s reelection and the specter of Jair Bolsonaro’s return loom over the G20 summit in Brazil. But despite the country’s struggles, Lula da Silva’s leadership provides a playbook for battling the far right.
After narrowly coming to power, Lula begins his third presidential term navigating between the demands of his supporters and the threat of a right-wing coup.
Brazilian president and working-class icon Lula da Silva made a major trip to Washington, DC last week. The two political leaders at the top of his meeting list: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.
Bolsonaro supporters’ January 8 riot has left the Brazilian right divided over how to respond to the antidemocratic attacks. And that’s put Lula in a stronger position to shore up Brazil’s democracy.
With the leftist Lula set to win Brazil’s presidency, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro is sowing doubts about the election process. So now, Bernie Sanders is putting Bolsonaro on notice and insisting the US oppose any government that takes power illegitimately.
John Bolton bragged this week that he’s “someone who has helped plan coups.” It was a brazen display of antidemocratic imperial arrogance, making clear that antidemocratic meddling is par for the course in US foreign policy.
Just weeks after disappearing, a journalist and human rights activist have been found murdered in the Amazon. Their shocking killings are a result of the pro-business, pro-extractivist agenda that Jair Bolsonaro has pushed to unprecedented extremes.
Lula is free and polling ahead for this year’s presidential election in Brazil. Is the far right losing its stronghold in Brazilian politics?
Lula rose from humble origins to become a leftist icon, exuding working-class authenticity and successfully bringing working people into the country’s political life. And his story isn’t over: he could soon return to power.
Beginning in 2014, Brazil was consumed by a moralizing anti-corruption drive that helped right-wing forces oust the Workers’ Party and undermine Lula’s legacy. It took investigative journalism to unravel Lava Jato’s mythology.
Lula’s release will not change the course of Brazilian politics by itself. But the leftist leader has already said his time in prison further radicalized him — and that can only bode well for the popular movement resisting Bolsonaro’s reactionary politics.
Jair Bolsonaro’s embarrassing, Cold War-style rant at the United Nations shows just how far Brazil’s international standing has sunk under its far-right president. With few friends abroad, it will be easier for opponents to defeat him in Brazil.
Rapacious capitalists are blazing a trail of staggering destruction across the Amazon rainforest — enabled by Brazil’s reactionary in chief, Jair Bolsonaro.
Right now, the best thing Brazil’s far-right president has going for him is Donald Trump. If Bernie Sanders is elected, that all changes.
Jair Bolsonaro’s chief foreign policy architect is combining rabid nationalist rhetoric with pathetic submissiveness to the United States.