Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s win in Brazil’s presidential election is a triumph for him, his country and the world. The 80-year-old incumbent snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, blocked the rise of the far right and saved the planetary air-conditioning system of the Amazon from irreparable destruction. Known universally as Lula, he made history by becoming the first candidate to win a presidential run-off after finishing second in the opening round. In triumphing against Flávio Bolsonaro, the leftist stopped what could have been the most dangerous consolidation of authoritarian rule in Brazil since military rule ended. A Bolsonaro presidency could have used a rightwing Congress to extend presidential terms and pack the supreme court, entrenching power for generations.
Lula seemed to have been energised by his first-round defeat by Mr Bolsonaro. The three-time president initially pitted his extraordinary life and record against a 45-year-old senator married to controversy. But voters wanted answers to economic insecurity, rising prices and poor public services. Lula reversed course in the second round, offering immediate relief from everyday costs and indebtedness – including to the rising number of self-employed voters whom his rightwing opponent had been courting. Popular mobilisation transformed the runoff into a race to stop a Bolsonaro restoration with student protests, mass demonstrations and a 10 million-strong “Lula’s Army” WhatsApp channel. It seemed to work. Nearly 5 million more people voted in the second round of the Brazilian election than the first. » | Editorial | Monday, October 26, 2026
Trump really does need to be rebuffed, too! Trump and his flawed, poisonous policies have been like a cancer on the world. And they have been just as malignant. Moreover, they have metastasized just as cancer does! And they have killed just as cancer does as well!
So where is this so-believed and so-beloved Almighty God? He appears to be as phantasmagorical as He is illusory.
During all of Trump’s destruction of a once relatively orderly world, God has demonstrated His apparent powerlessness! Either that or His insouciance. He appears to be as loving of His so-called children as He is careless of them.
If God really exists, it high time He took Trump off our hands; it’s high time He put a stop to Trump’s proclivities for incarcerating and killing innocent people, destroying a once functioning democracy, destroying countries, and stealing money that belongs to the people in order to to line his own pockets and bolster his bank accounts.
God is famous for having many mansions in the sky. He should give Trump one of them to relieve the peoples of the world of this intolerable chaos, this ever-growing drift towards fascism. After the contagion of Trump, the world is in dire need a great healing! — © Mark Alexander
