Brazils right turn reflects the global appeal of Trumps American pride

Latin America is turning right, and it’s a vindication for President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.In some ways, the Cold War never really ended in the Western Hemisphere: socialism has haunted the nations of Central and South America long after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the same Cuban regime the Soviet Union propped up for decades remains in power to this day.The hard left thought it had cemented control over Venezuela, too, thanks to Hugo Chavez and Nicolàs Maduro — until American forces snatched Maduro right out of his bed back in January and took him to New York to stand trial.Yet most of our neighbors to the south are not ruled by dictators: Instead, elections in Latin America have swung back and forth between left and right.Only now they’re all swinging to the right, as the region’s biggest nation dramatically illustrated this weekend.Brazil is now the scene of the greatest right-wing comeback since Trump’s own reelection two years ago.Flavio Bolsonaro — whose father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, is under house arrest — defeated leftist incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the first round of the country’s presidential contest on Sunday.Bolsonaro took 47% of the vote to Lula’s 45%, and with other right-leaning candidates garnering nearly 5%, Bolsonaro’s prospects in the runoff election on Oct.25 look bright.Yet that’s only half the story: The right, and the Bolsonaro family itself, also made huge advances in the nation’s legislative elections.“The Bolsonaro clan claimed victory in every race they contested,” the Buenos Aires Times noted.The ex-president’s wife, Michelle, won a federal senate seat, as did his second son, Carlos — Flavio’s younger brother.Meanwhile, third son Jair Renan Bolsonaro was elected as a federal deputy, as was the former president’s brother, Renato.Their party, the Liberal Party, nearly doubled its number of senators, from 15 to 28, and won the largest number of seats i...