Opinion: welcome Mr. President, unfortunately your honeymoon will be short-lived

By Rocco Caldero

(Opinion) What a wonderful country we have. I was born and to a large extent raised in Brazil and am grateful for it.

When I look back, much has improved. Certain things have even become great.

However, when it comes to presidential elections, not much has changed in my country in the last 36 years.

Many of us still believe that the government will solve all our problems once we elect the ‘right’ president.

Not that it would be any different elsewhere but still.

Every four years, when presidential elections come up, we place all our hopes on one candidate and idolize him, hoping and believing that he will be our savior.

But no matter who wins the election, not even 100 days shall pass, and we will be complaining and perhaps already calling for the president’s impeachment.

That’s at least how it’s been with every president elected since I can remember.

In 2018, literally everyone I knew in Brazil only complained about Lula da Silva, Dilma Rousseff, and their Workers’ Party (PT).

Bitterly.

All I could hear was: “Lula nunca mais, PT nunca mais.” (Never again Lula, never again PT).

Everything that the man demonstrably did well in the past was forgotten. And everything he did wrong or even dead wrong was on everyone’s lips.

I remember as if it was yesterday how some friends who did not necessarily like Bolsonaro still voted for him because according to them, he was the only chance Brazil had to remove PT from power.

PT phobia was so widespread and deep-rooted that my friends turned a blind eye, or two, to Bolsonaro and welcomed him as a white knight and savior of the nation.

Many of us did not vote for him because we truly supported him but because we scorned PT and everything it stood for.

And the same is happening now.

Although we as a people are far from all well either, we are doing better than many others given the events since 2019.

Bolsonaro and his team have surprised us and the world with a solid economy.

And still, we cannot forgive him for being who he is although he is the same today as he was in 2018 and before.

But in the end, who of us can resist selective perception?

Sometimes we look at a person and find them beautiful, only to find them rather unattractive the next time.

Everything is in the eye of the beholder.

And I hear the same thing I heard four years ago. Now simply with the signs reversed.

Many of my friends say that they don’t necessarily want Lula da Silva to be the new president, but they despise Bolsonaro so much that they will vote for Lula da Silva anyway because that is the only chance to remove Bolsonaro from office.

And so it happens that we need and want yesterday’s villain to save us today from our yesterday’s savior.

So how, when, and where did the love for Bolsonaro turn into disgust? Nobody really knows.

And nobody cares.

Back in 2018, he was seen by so many as the Brazilian version of Mr. America capable of saving Brazil from whatever they thought it needed saving from.

And then he fell from grace. Just like his predecessor and his predecessor’s predecessor and so on.

It is a loop.

That is why I expect the same outcome next year if Lula da Silva becomes our president again.

In less than a year in office, we will wake up from our dream and start complaining and calling for his impeachment and call for a new white knight.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if it was Bolsonaro? Just kidding.

The larger problem lies in the unrealistic expectations of many of us, our notion, influenced by false promises and flattery, of what a president and the government can and will do for us, and our naiveté about political realities.

We are the first to say that all politicians are liars and corrupt.

We all know that the system itself is a nest of vipers.

So why the surprise? And why the enthusiasm at the beginning?

Are we perhaps all bipolar, or subject to a mass trance?

I hope someone finds the answer to this. They would be my hero.

And until then, it continues as it always did.

Every four years we get under a spell and seem to forget, get wrapped up, and believe what the favorite candidate whispers into our ears.

Only to wake up deeply disappointed the next day and start crying.