Rained out

AT the time of writing (early Monday morning), it is being reported that former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has narrowly defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil's presidential runoff. If the projection holds, it will be the first significant pushback against the global right-wing wave, which had most recently seen successes in Sweden and Italy.

Unfortunately, there is little reason to be hopeful that it will hold. Bolsonaro and his supporters have been openly warning for months that they would consider any outcome that did not result in his reelection as being fraudulent, and they will not accept it. Much of the military and the police in Brazil back Bolsonaro, and were not at all subtle in their efforts to suppress the vote; a formal order circulated by the head of the Federal Traffic Police reportedly resulted in nearly 600 operations in Lula-supporting districts to try to prevent people from reaching the polls.