(Opinion) The “Workers’ Cause Party” (PCO per its Portuguese abbreviation) is a faux leftist cult that nowadays functions as the tip of the spear for President Lula’s disinformation campaign aimed at manipulating the perceptions of his Workers’ Party’s (PT) base regarding his newly US-aligned foreign policy.
Whether they were secretly recruited to do this by high-ranking members of the PT or are doing so on their own initiative to curry favor with it, there’s no doubt that the PCO is part of the latest Hybrid War on Brazil.
This ongoing campaign was analyzed at length here but can be summarized as the psychological operations that distract from the “politically inconvenient” fact that Lula’s foreign policy in his third term is largely aligned with the ruling US Democrats’ liberal-globalist one.
The PT’s base is being misled about this to preemptively avert the scenario of them constructively critiquing his recalibrated worldview and thus raising the chances that they successfully pressure him to change it.
These Hybrid Warriors have financial, ideological, and/or professional stakes in preserving the US-aligned course Lula has charted for Brazil ahead of the impending trifurcation of International Relations into the US-led West’s Golden Billion, the Sino-Russo Entente and the Global South.
The PCO’s disinformation products are perfect examples of this influence operation in practice since this cult has appointed itself as his gatekeepers/inquisitors and is thus the most active force covering up for him.
Closely following its narratives in support of Lula’s newly US-aligned foreign policy can enable observers to intuit the angles with which the PT’s elite members are attacking their base by proxy, whether after secretly recruiting the PCO to do so or by winking in support of its self-interested actions.
The most instructive example thus far is indisputably the polar opposite spin it placed on his policy towards Nicaragua before and after his decision to host hundreds of the US regime change agents.
STEP ONE: VEHEMENTLY ARGUE AGAINST THE THEN-PROPOSAL
Before the Brazilian Ambassador to the UN was ordered by Lula on 7 March to express “extreme concern” with that country’s allegedly “serious human rights abuses” as the pretext for hosting those traitors who were expelled to the US by Managua, this cult harshly condemned that exact same policy.
Their official newspaper published a piece on 4 March titled “PSOL quer que Lula acolha agentes dos EUA expulsos da Nicarágua”, which attacked a Lula-supporting PSOL party for suggesting that he do this.
The PCO described this proposal as “in favor of imperialism, ” advancing the US-backed coup attempt in that Central American state.
They concluded in their diatribe that their PSOL opponent “only serves to confuse the struggle of the masses and thus facilitate the infiltration of the bourgeoisie in the workers’ movement.”
That last-mentioned claim can be interpreted as an attempt by the PCO to cover up for its own role by reaffirming its self-appointed function as Lula’s gatekeepers/inquisitors.
STEP TWO: IMPLY THAT IT IS A CIA-BACKED IMPERIALIST PLOT
The cult then published a follow-up piece one day later, on 5 March, titled “Crença na democracia e liberalismo: o PSOL contra a Nicarágua,” in which it very strongly implied that a leading member of that party is a CIA agent through several degrees of separation, thus explaining why he supports that policy.
The PCO argued that those people in question aren’t politically persecuted, thus making them ineligible for refuge. It then condemned PSOL for its “close links to the ‘democratic’ sectors of imperialism.”
That last-mentioned attack was incredibly ironic since the PCO can be described in the exact same way, especially after it immediately flipped the script on this issue the moment that Lula promulgated the policy that they had just spent the last two back-to-back articles attacking.
Readers can learn more about why Lula aligned with the US on Nicaragua here. This can be summarized simply as proof of his sharing its ruling Democrats’ liberal-globalist worldview.
The PCO obviously didn’t expect this.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t have attacked PSOL for its ultimately successful proposal that Lula himself embraced.
This cult’s leader might have been convinced that the man who he delusionally fantasized about replacing wouldn’t have betrayed his Nicaraguan counterpart like that due to their close friendship, but whatever his thinking was, it proved to be an incredible miscalculation that resulted in the PCO having to reverse its stance in an instant shamelessly.
STEP THREE: OMIT KEY FACTS AFTER LULA PROMULGATES THIS POLICY
Instead of continuing to condemn Lula’s offer to host hundreds of the US regime change agents to maintain ideological consistency, it enthusiastically supported his decision without explaining why it suddenly changed its position on this issue.
The day after this US-aligned policy was promulgated, the PCO published a piece on 8 March titled “Abaixo a ameaça de intervenção imperialista na Nicarágua!” in which it screamed its support for Nicaragua.
Quite conspicuously but entirely predictable for those who are already aware of the PCO’s role in covering up for everything Lula does, the article made absolutely zero mention of their harsh criticism of this exact same policy days before when it was only proposed by the PSOL and had yet to be practiced.
Nor, for that matter, was there any reference to Lula hosting these same US-backed regime change agents, who the PCO inexplicably decided to now refer to as “political prisoners” in that text.
These three omissions of objectively existing and easily verifiable fact – their prior condemnation of this policy days prior, Lula’s embrace of the aforesaid, and their decision to no longer argue against those individuals’ claims to be “political prisoners” – result in that article being bonafide disinformation.
This term refers to information propagated to deceive people, which is precisely what their article aims to do by deliberating omitting those three indisputable facts.
STEP FOUR: DOUBLE DOWN ON THE DISINFORMATION NARRATIVE
The PCO’s next piece of disinformation on this issue was published later that same day under the title “Lula enfrenta o imperialismo e defende a Nicarágua”.
It quotes their leader who counterfactually denied that Lula’s latest policy towards Nicaragua is aligned with imperialism despite his cult’s official newspaper literally arguing in two back-to-back articles that this exact same policy is indeed imperialistic to the core just before him promulgating it.
Like the piece published earlier that day, the PCO’s cult leader also conspicuously omitted any mention of Lula ultimately embracing the same policy his official newspaper had railed against.
Rather, this professional disinformation agent attempted to deliberately mislead his targeted audience by only talking about Brazil’s refusal to sign a joint declaration condemning Nicaragua, which he falsely framed as supposedly proving that Lula was still on the polar opposite side as the imperialists.
STEP FIVE: CONDEMN CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICS AS IMPERIALIST AGENTS
The PCO’s latest disinformation attack at the time of the present analysis publication was released on 10 March with the title “Cartel da imprensa golpista volta suas baterias contra Nicarágua”.
It is an especially devious form of disinformation since it attempts to gaslight the PT’s base into thinking that any well-intended constructive critiques of Lula’s newly US-aligned policy towards that country advance imperialist interests since anti-Lula outlets criticized him for not signing last week’s joint declaration.
It doesn’t matter that these two angles of criticism are completely separate, with the PT base being multipolar and in opposition to Lula hosting hundreds of the US regime change agents, while his traditional critics’ is unipolar and in opposition to him not signing that document.
The PCO is interested in connecting them to pressure the PT’s rank-and-file into self-censoring out of fear that they’ll be viciously smeared as “imperialists” in an unhinged witch hunt should they dare to speak out.
Several days prior, however, that cult’s leader claimed in the previously cited disinformation piece that the left could indeed criticize Lula and that doing so could help keep him in check.
In hindsight, he wasn’t sincere, as evidenced by his official newspaper publishing their latest disinformation aimed at manipulating the PT’s base into thinking that constructively critiquing his newly US-aligned policy towards Nicaragua advances imperialist interests.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Closely following the PCO’s coverage of bilateral relations with that country is an exercise in cognitive dissonance and doublethink, considering the polar opposite spin it placed on hosting hundreds of the US regime change agents before and after Lula decided to do so.
The first two articles criticizing this policy were published with the expectation that he’d reject it, which suggests that their angle either wasn’t ordered by the PT’s elite members or even they didn’t know about it in advance.
Whatever the truth may be, which could include the PCO opportunistically leading this disinformation campaign covering up for Lula’s US-aligned foreign policy in general and in Nicaragua in particular for self-interested political reasons, this cult did a one-eighty after he embraced this policy.
It then began producing bonafide disinformation products that deliberately omit any mention of its prior criticism of this policy or Lula’s promulgation thereof to mislead their audience.
Observers can learn from this case study that the latest Hybrid War on Brazil veritably exists, as was argued in the introduction to the present analysis, but unlike the prior one waged against Lula and his party, the most recent campaign is waged by their putative supporters.
The PCO is the perfect example of these disinformation operations in practice due to its self-appointed role as his gatekeeper/inquisitor, which this cult’s leader delusionally envisages will facilitate its rise to power.
That same professional disinformation agent’s newspaper shamelessly flipped from condemning the then-proposal for Brazil to host hundreds of the US regime change agents as a CIA-backed imperialist plot to fiercely defending this policy after Lula promulgated it and condemning its critics as imperialist agents.
This stunning narrative reversal is the most damning evidence of the disinformation campaign that his cult is waging to cover up for Lula’s US-aligned foreign policy and mislead the PT’s base.