A Cold and Broken Hallelujah

If not for a few percentage points in Brazil's first round of voting, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro would be President-elect Flavio Bolsonaro, and the incumbent, Lula de Silva, would be preparing to spend his twilight years in something of a figurative political exile, his second term remembered as a regrettable footnote in Brazil's history.

Instead, however, Lula has managed to cling to power by the skin of his teeth, and it is Bolsonaro who is being, quite literally, exiled. His passport has been suspended, his assets frozen, and he's been forced to take refuge in, of all places, Miami, on a visa generously granted by the Trump Administration. He's facing criminal charges at home by the Brazilian Supreme Court- namely corruption and money laundering, which curiously only became a problem after the election. The once-hopeful Presidential hopeful has now become a refugee- a man without a country hiding out on Florida's sunny shores.

A more skeptical and cynical observer would call this yet another instance of lawfare, of Lula asserting what little dominance he has left in true tinpot-dictator fashion.

Across the world, governments, including our very own, have adopted a motto- "if you come at the king, you best not miss" and have ushered in an era of retaliatory lawfare. We saw this in 2024 when President Trump, himself the losing candidate in the 2020 Presidential Election faced spurious allegations of misconduct both personal and financial, and was subjected to endless probes, investigations, and trials, not a single one producing anything worth a serious conviction. As such, we also saw the rise of yet another political personality promising to "take down" Trump, this time being Prosecutor Jack Smith, who like Avenatti, Kinzinger, Cheney, Mueller, and Raskin before him became the subject of endless mockery when he was unable to come up with the goods. Trump, without incident, became the nation's 47th President, to varying levels of success.

It's tempting to claim that the situations hold many parallels. Of course, in a nation like Brazil with a less stellar human rights record, it's not hard to imagine that Lula's retaliation wouldn't have ended with a conviction. Bolsonaro is likely very fortunate to be alive and maybe should weigh the options before returning in four years to try again.

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In 280 and 279 B.C, King Pyrrhus of Epirus faced off against the Roman Army at the Battles of Heraclea and Asculum. He was successful in defeating the Romans, but in doing so incurred irreplaceable casualties. The victory itself was hollow, resulting in Pyrrhus exclaiming "one other such victory would undo me!"

One could imagine that Lula de Silva feels a lot like Pyrrhus right now. Sure, he won, but the next four years are, politically, going to be a living hell.

The Brazilian President is heading into this next term cold, afraid, and alone, without much help outside of the courts. Bolsonaro may have lost the Presidency, but Lula is heading into his next term with a Conservative Federal Senate and a Conservative Chamber of Deputies, each ready to rip his agenda apart like confetti. Domestically, Lula will need to take a lot of the bass out of his voice to get anything done, and internationally, any ambitious plans to move Brazil further towards BRICS are now dead-on-arrival, themselves relics of a much more boisterous version of the Lula agenda- one that can't exist in the post-2026 political realities the country faces.

Of course, he'll try. Despite an entire continent and his own Congress against him, Lula won't let the dream die. But he won't get very far with a shuttered, shackled, hostile Government like the one the people of Brazil elected in that first round of voting- bold, girthy Conservative majorities in all houses. The United States won't have a reliable trade and political partner in Brazil, but neither will BRICS, and while it's not much, it means the continued supremacy of the Petrodollar.

For everyone, the 2026 Brazil Elections were themselves Pyrrhic- hollow victories, an Alamo of sorts for all involved.