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"Pink Tide Ebbs"
by Joel Bowman
"This week, we dared notice something positive… an entire continent moving away from dread socialism. Check out this above handy map, from Tuesday’s Note. Terminally fashionable among miseducated campus denizens north of the equator, socialism has a long and sordid history down this End of the World. From Alvarado’s Peru to Allende’s Chile… Morales in Bolivia to the Chavistas in Venezuela… Big Government Peronists in Argentina to Lula’s long arm here in Brazil…the continent has suffered enough collectivist brain-rot to make any sentient being recoil in horror. From the late ‘90s through the late 2010s, the so-called “Pink Tide” flowed over the land, so that at its peak, roughly 350 million people – some three-quarters of the population – lived under one form of far-left lunacy or another.
Then, beginning with the election of Javier Milei in our adopted country of Argentina, back in late 2023, the tide began to turn. As you can see from the map above, the shift has been non-trivial. Should Brazil turn away from Lula’s grip a couple of weeks from now, as is widely expected following his defeat in the first round of voting, 92% of South America’s population and 95% of its GDP will fall under conservative and/or anti-socialist governments. Call it a Liberty Spring at the end of the world.
Ah, but what about the scene here on the ground? Brazil is a big place, to be sure... and we claim no special insights beyond what we see with our own ears and hear with our own eyes. And even then we are often confused. “This place has become a real ‘digital nomad’ destination,” our cheerful host, a semi-retired physician, explained. “The woman renting the next casita next door, she’s a lawyer. A Porteña [from Buenos Aires]. She works online a few hours in the morning, then spends her days on the beach and teaching yoga classes.
“Down the hill there’s a young couple who are ‘in tech.’ I’m not exactly sure what they do,” she continued, “but they seem to spend a lot of time in the water. We get all kinds coming through, really. They stay for a month or two, then flit off to some other tropical clime…” Hmm… uber chic… young… hip… The astute reader has already begun to wonder… “What on earth are you doing there, Joel?”
Touché, dear reader. Now you know it is dear wifey who books our family vacations. Your editor, who moonlights as the family porter, is grateful to pick up a few extra shifts, schlepping the bags down to the beach of an afternoon… which is where we’re heading presently. More next week.
In the meantime, do check out this past week’s Notes below, including our beach chair coverage of Brazil’s “far right tsunami,” as it was reported in the press… plus guest columnist, Lau Vegys’s excellent analysis of Trump’s inflation gambit. Now that POTUS is officially leaning into fiat debasement (as he flatly stated in a recent interview with Time Magazine), what does it mean for the dollars in your pocket? "
"Brazil’s 'Far Right Tsunami'”
by Joel Bowman
“When we look at how the political color of the map of the
region has changed, one is clearly filled with hope.”
~ Javier Milei, speaking at the Winds of Change conference in Sept. 2026
Excerpt: Pipa Beach, Brazil - "Are you paying attention, dear reader? Another domino teeters and wobbles down this End of the Americas. But first... We came to Brazil to take a break, to read and relax, to work on our pre-award winning novel, and to escape the scourge of modern politics for a couple of weeks. Perhaps we should have looked at the calendar: The very first weekend we arrived, the Brazilians went to the polls for their general elections. On the ballot (we assume): “The future!” “Our children!” “Democracy itself!” Oh well, we mused, the spectacle of modern politics is usually worth a good chuckle. So we grabbed a beach chair, ordered a stiff caipirinha, and settled in for the show...
As it happens, we were here (also by mistake) for the country’s last general election, back in 2022, when lifelong socialist goon, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, nosed out the incumbent (and father of the current contender), Jair Bolsonaro. At the time, there were credible accusations of widespread voter fraud, ballot stuffing, and systemic corruption on both sides... in other words, a presidential election in South America.
Naturally, Bolsonaro Sr. was jailed after his election loss – par for the course in this part of the world. This past weekend’s election pitted Jair’s eldest son, Flavio, against Lula the Undead. Four other members of the Bolsonaro family also ran for election in various other governmental races.
To the shock of absolutely nobody, the long-disgraced legacy media... the pollsters and the insiders... thought leaders and quackademics... the usual list of suspect experts and expert suspects... all lined up behind their man in office, one of the last holdouts against a streak of conservative victories that has been sweeping the continent (more about which in a moment)... Ah, but wait... what’s this? A wrinkle in the script?"
Full, highly recommended article is here:
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