Opinion: The Big Lie in Brazilian Politics

Opinion by Michael Royster

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The effectiveness of the Big Lie has been recognized by politicians ever since WWII. The Big Lie theory holds that if a big lie is repeated often enough, people will come to believe it, whereas they won’t necessarily credit small lies.

The Big Lie strategy has been wholeheartedly adopted by PT, Brazil’s leftist Workers Party; it thrives in Brazil’s Northeast, and has been exported around the world, with an astonishing rate of success.

The Brazilian Big Lie is this: former President Luis Inácio “Lula” da Silva is a political prisoner, the innocent victim of a vendetta by Brazil’s prosecutors and judges. One British commentator has used the portmanteau term “lawfare” to describe the alleged weaponizing of Brazilian law against Lula.

This term encapsulates a traditional saying in Brazil: “for my friends, anything; for my enemies, the law!” The phrase succinctly describes the behavior of corrupt politicians who overlook the peccadilloes of their friends but prosecute those of their enemies.

Lula had long known the Brazilian Congress was replete with money-grubbing scoundrels; he railed against them during the 1988 Constitutional Convention. Notwithstanding, once elected President in 2002, he decided the best way to implement his progressive social programs was to buy those scoundrels’ votes. Lula’s former enemies became his friends, as the “Mensalão” prosecutions later showed.

As an aside, several PT leaders convicted of participating in the “Mensalão” scheme still mendaciously proclaim the Mensalão to be a myth. That is a small lie, and so has gained no traction in Brazil or abroad.

After the Mensalão, Brazil’s corruption deteriorated from endemic to systemic.  The system was dubbed “Petrolão” because the first Lava-Jato investigations concerned underhanded dealings involving Petrobras; however, subsequent investigations have shown it infected all government – controlled sectors of the economy — e.g. oil and gas, electricity and public works.

Note the key word “government-controlled”. From 2002 until 2016 when Dilma was impeached, Lula controlled, directly or indirectly, the Brazilian government. He wasn’t acting alone, of course; he found allies in numerous other political parties, most notably PMDB, famed for its ability to make “friends” by fair means or foul.

Part and parcel of the Big Lie is the claim (small lie) that Lula knew nothing about the Mensalão, Petrolão or the systemic corruption. Their only “proof” is that Lula was not prosecuted for overlooking or conspiring to implement the corrupt system.

The crux of the Big Lie is that the prosecutorial/judicial deep state (exemplified by Judge Sergio Moro) brought trumped-up charges of Lula having personally benefited from the corrupt system. True believers of the Big Lie claim that the evidence provided at Lula’s trial, and confirmed by the appellate court, was insufficient to support a conviction.

Lula’s political supporters claim (small lie) he is being persecuted simply because he helped relieve the misery of Brazil’s poor, which is anathema to the putative deep state. They therefore demand that he, an innocent victim, be allowed to run for President.

The Curmudgeon does not believe the Big Lie nor the subsidiary small lies. In his opinion, Lula is not a political prisoner (“preso politico”) but simply an imprisoned politician (“politico preso”): as such, he is legally ineligible for the presidency of Brazil, and the rule of law should prevail.