Election day: Brazil . October 25. Flavio Bolsonaro ( left ) and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro holds a slight lead in polls with 50.9% of the vote.   It was Flavio's father who was jailed for an attempted coup to hold onto power. Lula represents the left-wing camp, while Bolsonaro the right. The history is too much to totally comprehend, because Jair Bolsonaro (father of Flavio) gained nationwide recognition during the 2016 impeachment proceedings against Lula's protegee, then-President Dilma Rousseff.  Bolsonaro went on to win the 2118 election while Lula was serving a prison sentence on corruption charges.  But Lula's conviction was overturned, and he made this comeback.  In the meantime, Jair Bolsonaro was convicted by Brazil's Supreme Court over a 2022 election conspiracy case.  Following all this? Flavio is a toned-down version of his father Jair. Who should you root for? Well, Donald Trump shares a close personal alliance with Jair Bolsonaro. T...

In Brazil , the voting public, as in the USA, returned to the presidency an old-time liberal politician, kicking out the ultra-conservative miscreant, another Donald Trump.  Not to say that the new president is the equivalent of Joe Biden, for Luiz Inácio LULA da Silva was a former president who was convicted of graft and served 580 days in jail.  He is 77, and Biden was elected to the White House at the same age.   Lula just this May got married  for the third time, to a 55-year old sociologist.  About incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, he is the model of Trump, with integrity and conspiracy problems, also blaming the loss on crooked counting.  The results were close, with Lula getting less than 51% and Jair more than 49%.  Certainly, Bolsonaro will maintain a Trump-like effort to legally or illegally maintain power.   I don't think, for example, that he has yet conceded .  Also, he has been blamed for mishandling the pandemic.  Brazil...