Lula and the Spirit of Our Time

In dark times of hybrid warfare and algorithmic manipulation, history offers us a man of legitimacy, serenity, and courage. This article is a strategic, historical, and profoundly human defense of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as a global historical figure and a concrete hope for a democratic future. Not out of idolatry—but because civilization depends on it.

A man and history in confrontation with obscurantism.

On July 28, 2025, the New York Times published an editorial titled “Sovereignty Is Having a Moment.” The phrase may seem trivial at first glance, but it holds a historical depth that few major global media outlets have dared to acknowledge in recent years: sovereignty is back at the center of the global geopolitical dispute. And, even more so, the epicenter of this dispute is Brazil—and the name that represents it is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Lula, a metalworker from the Northeast of Brazil, a former political prisoner, twice president of the Republic and now head of state in his third term, is not just a ruler. He is a global historical figure. As Steve Bannon announced back in 2022, he is the greatest obstacle to the advance of the far-right in the world. In times of hybrid wars, institutional collapse, algorithmic manipulation, and reactionary offensives, Lula has become the last democratic beacon with symbolic and political legitimacy to navigate all planetary fronts—from G20 diplomacy to forgotten favelas, from the United Nations to grassroots assemblies.

This is not about idolatry. It is about historical rigor and materialist analysis. The time we live in is one of reconfiguration of world hegemonies, and Brazil is the main symbolic, political, and institutional battleground of this shift. Trump, upon returning to power in the United States in 2025, does not do so to govern with balance: he returns with the clear objective of crushing any focus of sovereignty in the Global South, especially in Brazil, which dared to raise its voice against the FTAA in 2005, regain international prominence in 2023, and maintain a policy of national reconstruction anchored in inclusion, multilateralism, and peace.

The war against Brazil has already begun, but not with tanks or missiles. It manifests itself through unilateral tariffs, informational sabotage, lawfare, diplomatic blackmail, and, above all, the siege of Lula's image as a civilizational leader. Trump does not negotiate with Lula not because of political differences, but because the project he represents demands the symbolic and institutional annihilation of everything Lula embodies: sovereignty, integration, social justice, dialogue between peoples.

In this article, we propose a reading of our time that rejects cynicism and false neutrality. Based on historical-dialectical materialism, we will analyze Lula's centrality as a global historical subject, the construction of his soft power, the nature of the confrontation with Trumpism and the international far-right, the perspectives opened by the global recognition of his leadership, and the risks and possibilities facing Brazil and the world until October 2026—the date of the next elections and a possible historical turning point.

Because what's at stake isn't just Brazilian democracy. It's the very idea of ​​civilization.

The long road of a global worker: how Lula built his soft power.

The idea of ​​soft power, coined by Joseph Nye in the 1990s, refers to the ability of a country (or leader) to influence the behavior of others without direct coercion, through its culture, values, and moral legitimacy. In the classic terms of Western geopolitical thought, soft power is an attribute of empires. However, the 21st century has seen the emergence of an unacceptable exception to this pattern: a Latin American metalworker, without a university degree, has become the most respected political leader in the Global South—and a symbolic threat to the imperial order. That man's name is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Lula's international rise is not the result of personal marketing, but of a strategic project to reposition Brazil in the world. From the beginning of his first term in 2003, Lula broke with the subservient logic of Brazilian foreign policy which, for decades, oscillated between subservience to the US and strategic isolation. Under the leadership of Celso Amorim and Marco Aurélio Garcia, Brazil adopted what was called an "assertive and active foreign policy"—a guideline based on multilateralism, South-South integration, and the defense of national sovereignty as an inalienable principle.

This change was not merely rhetorical. The Lula government was instrumental in the creation and consolidation of blocs such as BRICS, UNASUR, CELAC, and IBSA. It established trade and diplomatic agreements with dozens of African countries, expanded Brazil's presence in the Middle East, and strengthened ties with Asia, without ever breaking with the US or Europe—but also without ever bowing down. This stance, radical in its rationality, deeply irritated the elites of the Global North: Brazil was ceasing to be an appendage and becoming a player.

At the same time, Lula's soft power is inseparable from his biography. No propaganda algorithm can create what he represents: a migrant from the Northeast of Brazil, illiterate until the age of 10, who lost a finger in a factory, led strikes during the dictatorship, and became president of the Republic through popular vote. This trajectory makes him not only legitimate on the international stage—it makes him unavoidable. It is impossible to accuse him of "populism" without the accusation turning against the very system that excluded millions like him for centuries.

When Lula spoke at international forums alongside Bush, Merkel, Putin, or Hu Jintao, it wasn't just Brazil that gained stature. It was the history of the world's poor that took to the podium. His speech was different because his place in the world was different. He didn't represent the banks, nor the markets, nor the media conglomerates—he represented the invisible, the exploited, the peoples of the Global South.

This is precisely why Lula's soft power is feared and fought with such fury. He is not "sellable" in the mold of neoliberal globalism, but neither is he rejectable without revealing the racism, classism, and imperialism embedded in the criticisms leveled against him. Lula moves with ease in the Vatican and the WTO, in the outskirts of São Paulo and in the Élysée Palace. And wherever he goes, he carries with him the possibility that the world order will be rewritten—with sovereignty, solidarity, and social justice.

Over the past two decades, no other leader from the Global South has built such a broad, respected, and resilient diplomatic network. Not even Xi Jinping or Putin—due to their direct antagonism with the West—achieved what Lula accomplished: navigating multiple poles of global power without submitting to any. His authority is recognized by Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Brussels, and the Deep South of the planet. This is no small feat: it is a geopolitical fact of the first order.

Thus, Lula's soft power is not limited to charisma or affection. It is the synthesis of a collective history of struggle, a national project of sovereignty, and a foreign policy consistent with the principles he defends domestically. That is why, in 2025, his name became the most powerful symbolic threat to the project of the global far-right. And that is also why Trump and his allies need to destroy him.

They know that a leader with those credentials, that reach, that moral legitimacy—and that ability to mobilize people—cannot be tolerated in times of hybrid warfare.

Global fascism and the imperial reaction to the leading role of the South.

Contrary to what centrist liberals and cynical analysts from the business academy maintain, 21st-century fascism is not a deviation from the democratic norm, nor an irrational aberration that spontaneously emerged from social networks. In its most naked and direct form, it is a rational, strategic, and articulated response to the collapse of Western hegemony. Its objective is to contain, by any means necessary, the insurgency of the Global South, the exhaustion of neoliberalism, and the proliferation of alternatives to the American unipolar order. Contemporary fascism is, therefore, a preventive counter-revolution, waged even before the revolution takes place.

The rise of Lula and other popular Latin American leaders in the 2000s represented, in the eyes of the imperial elites, an unacceptable rupture in the machinery of hemispheric domination. Brazil's refusal to join the FTAA in 2005, investments in regional integration through UNASUR and CELAC, rapprochement with Africa, the strengthening of BRICS, the defense of the Palestinian cause, the construction of an assertive and active foreign policy—all these movements placed Brazil, until then a subordinate ally of the United States, at the center of a new geopolitical grammar based on sovereignty and cooperation among equals.

This project, led by Lula with enormous internal legitimacy and international respect, immediately activated reaction mechanisms. Starting in 2013, with the June protests and the global authoritarian shift, a hybrid war against Brazil began, orchestrated by liberal think tanks, disinformation networks, sectors of the Judiciary, the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Armed Forces, and, above all, by the international apparatus of psychological warfare and cognitive manipulation. The objective of this war was never merely electoral. What was intended—and still is—is to annihilate the idea of ​​a sovereign, strong, united, and leading Brazil, capable of inspiring other countries in the Global South to challenge the unipolar command system.

Bolsonaro's election in 2018 was the high point of this destabilization operation. But Lula's return in 2023 thwarted the original plan. And it is in this context that Donald Trump's re-election in 2025 should be understood: as the global relaunch of the fascist offensive with a preferred target — Lula and Brazil.

Trump is not just the president of the United States. He is the international operator of a coalition that openly articulates the authoritarian projects of Javier Milei in Argentina, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Narendra Modi in India, and other representatives of what can be called today the Global Axis of Obscurantism. Each in their own way, these leaders implement a power project based on the destruction of public reason, the manipulation of faith, ethnic supremacy, the denial of human rights, and an offensive against any form of redistribution of wealth or power.

Within this logic, Brazil is seen as the link to be broken. Lula represents everything the global far-right hates: a poor worker who became president, a leader who speaks with the Pope and with indigenous peoples, a man who can dialogue with Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, unions, and peasant movements with the same serenity. More than that, Lula embodies the possibility of an alternative model of civilization: a world with cooperation instead of war, with sovereignty instead of submission, with integration instead of recolonization.

That is precisely why he has become a target. Trump will not agree to negotiate with Lula, not because of policy differences, but because the project Trump represents—a project of plunder, domination, and institutional destruction—demands the political, symbolic, and diplomatic elimination of everything Lula represents. The image of Brazil under Lula needs to be imploded, vilified, delegitimized. And this is being done now, in real time, through trade tariffs, institutional sabotage, disinformation campaigns, and psychological warfare.

The offensive is not just against a government, but against the idea that a peripheral country can govern itself with dignity. Therefore, Brazil is not experiencing a "commercial disagreement" with the US. It is experiencing a coordinated destabilization process, in which the structures of Brazilian democracy—institutions, press, public opinion—are direct targets of attack.

In this scenario, Lula is not just the president of Brazil. He is, in fact, the main symbolic and practical barrier to the advance of global fascism. And that is why the war against him will be total. And that is also why defending Lula today is defending democracy, sovereignty, and civilization.

The US-Brazil crisis: sovereignty at stake, democracy under attack.

What is happening today between Brazil and the United States is not a conventional diplomatic dispute. It is a hybrid war in full swing, with clear objectives: to destabilize the Lula government, to demoralize Brazilian democratic institutions, and to prepare the ground for the return of the far-right to power in 2026. Contrary to the narrative of the liberal press—which insists on treating the conflict as a “commercial tension” or a “difference in economic models”—we are facing a frontal attack on Brazilian sovereignty, orchestrated from the heart of American imperial power.

Trump is not interested in dialogue with Brazil. And the reason is simple: the goal of Trumpism is to destroy Lula—not to negotiate with him. The plan is to weaken the government, foment internal crises, sabotage the economy, and create an artificial climate of dissatisfaction, inflated by disinformation networks, infiltrated think tanks, business agents, and coup-plotting sectors of the state apparatus. All this with a long-term strategic objective: to turn Brazil into a plunder colony administered by a far-right puppet starting in 2026.

Since Trump's return to power, the signs have been unmistakable. The unilateral tariffs imposed on strategic Brazilian products—especially in the agricultural export sector and the rare earth market—are not economic measures, but instruments of trade warfare with a political function: to generate instability, disrupt production chains, provoke internal reactions, and damage the government's image. It is a gradual, silent, but lethal siege.

At the same time, Brazilian and Latin American intelligence agencies have already detected an exponential increase in coordinated disinformation operations, fueled by North American, Argentinian, and Hungarian networks, all linked to the new fascist international led by Steve Bannon. The attack on the Supreme Federal Court, the progressive press, universities, social movements, and President Lula himself is part of a psychological warfare operation aimed at eroding public trust in their institutions.

In this scenario, Lula's attempt to engage in dialogue with Trump is as courageous as it is strategic. Lula knows that diplomatic silence does not benefit Brazil—on the contrary, it reinforces the image of isolation that the enemies of sovereignty want to build. That is why he extended a hand. But Trump did not respond. Not because he doubts Lula's peaceful intentions, but because his agenda is conflict. Trump wants war—and war requires enemies.

This refusal to engage in dialogue, however, does not weaken Lula—it strengthens his historical position. By positioning himself as the adult in the room, the rational and moderate leader who proposes peace and cooperation, Lula unmasks the true face of the empire: a power that does not accept equals, that does not negotiate with sovereigns, that does not coexist with popular democracies. The more Brazil tries to build bridges, the more the empire will reveal its willingness to destroy them. And the more the people realize this, the clearer the asymmetrical nature of the ongoing war will become.

The international repercussions of this confrontation are revealing. While Trump isolates himself in his bubble of neo-fascist alliances, democratic leaders from different continents are beginning to recognize that Lula's struggle is, in fact, the struggle of us all. Several representatives of the Global South, including African presidents, Asian leaders, and even European diplomats, have expressed concern about what is happening. The general perception is that if Brazil falls, others will follow. What is at stake is not just the mandate of a president, but the future of the self-determination of peoples in the era of algorithmic domination and information warfare.

It is no coincidence that the article published in the New York Times on July 28, 2025, stated unequivocally: "Sovereignty is having a moment." The phrase, at once ironic and premonitory, acknowledges that the contemporary geopolitical battle revolves around a concept that has been rejected in recent decades—sovereignty. And Brazil, because of its history, its geographical position, its wealth, and above all, because of Lula, is today on the front line of this battle.

The ongoing war is not cold. It is hot. Only its tanks are algorithms, its drones are fake news, its bullets are narratives. Brazilian democracy is under attack not with chemical weapons, but with cognitive manipulation, lawfare, currency instability, media blackmail, and symbolic sabotage. And in this multi-front scenario, Lula's leadership is, paradoxically, also the last shield of national institutions.

The empire doesn't want to talk. It wants surrender. But Lula, with the serenity of someone who knows the people and their history, will not surrender. And the more the world realizes that Brazil is a target for daring to dream of sovereignty, the more the legitimacy of its resistance will grow.

The New York Times article and the belated recognition: 'Sovereignty Is Having a Moment'

On July 28, 2025, one of the main showcases of the American intellectual establishment published an editorial whose title phrase synthesizes, with uncomfortable precision, the spirit of our time: “Sovereignty Is Having a Moment.” The New York Times, which for decades was the herald of neoliberal globalization and the supremacy of the “free market” as a universal fetish, suddenly turns its eyes to the concept that its own doctrine tried to bury: sovereignty. And it does so not as a philosophical abstraction, but as a concrete problem—with a name, date, and address: the Brazil of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The mere publication of this editorial already carries an unintentional geopolitical confession. By declaring that sovereignty “is experiencing a moment,” the newspaper admits that something in the global order has broken down. The previous rules, based on the obedience of peripheral countries to the norms of finance capital and the interests of Washington, no longer guarantee stability or consent. The world is changing. And the vectors of this change come from where it was least expected: from the South. From those whom imperial logic had condemned to the eternal condition of commodity suppliers and indebted consumers of technology.

In this context of historical shift, the Times recognizes that Lula represents the first major obstacle to the new imperial offensive led by Trump. Not because the newspaper admires Lula—his history is clear regarding biased criticism, the echo of financial lobbies, and deliberate omissions during periods of lawfare. But because, at the current stage of the global crisis, ignoring Lula's presence as a central actor in the struggle for world hegemony has become impossible even for the spokespeople of the empire. There comes a point where reality imposes its existence even on the most sophisticated editorial cynicism.

The interpretation offered by the New York Times is, however, ambiguous. On the one hand, there is a strategic admission that Lula embodies a new international grammar based on multilateralism, inclusion, and interdependent cooperation—and that this grammar represents a real threat to the authoritarian order that Trump is trying to re-establish. On the other hand, the newspaper still attempts to frame this movement within the logic of exceptionalism—as if the “moment of sovereignty” were an emergency, temporary response provoked by the excesses of Trumpism, and not a structural trend of contestation against neoliberalism and the colonial architecture of the 21st century.

This ambivalence reveals an internal contradiction in liberal thought: it can no longer defend democracy without resorting to the idea of ​​sovereignty, but it also cannot accept the full sovereignty of the countries of the South without collapsing its own structure of domination. Lula, in this sense, embodies the impasse. He is, at the same time, the figure who embodies democratic values—inclusion, dialogue, stability, respect for institutions—and the symbol of what the imperial order fears most: a people governing themselves, through a leader who owes nothing to Wall Street, the State Department, or foundations funded by technocratic billionaires.

The Times article, therefore, should not be read merely as a gesture of recognition. It should be read as a sign that the empire knows it is losing control of the international imagination. Lula's image is no longer subject to external control. It has multiplied, escaped editorial constraints, and begun to circulate as a living symbol of what is being suppressed: the possibility of a world governed by popular, humanist, and sovereign projects.

Lula's belated consecration as a central figure in global democratic resistance is not a gift from the American media. It is a victory for history—and a confirmation that the struggle was worthwhile. It is also a warning to the strategists of chaos: the more they attack Lula, the more the world will realize what is really at stake.

Sovereignty is, in fact, experiencing a moment. But it is not an isolated instant. It is the historical return of a fundamental principle to the center of world politics. And Lula, with all the contradictions and greatness that compose him, is today its most legitimate, most powerful, most dangerous face for the system—and most necessary for the people.

What's to come (2025–2026)

History does not repeat itself as farce or tragedy. It moves through contradictions, leaps, ruptures, and reorganizations. The present is always a contested crossroads, and the future, a contingent synthesis of the forces that confront each other now. With this principle, what can be predicted for the Brazilian and global scenario between 2025 and 2026 is not a fixed script, but an arena of possibilities in which Lula—and the people—occupy central positions. What we will do here, therefore, is a predictive exercise anchored in the concrete analysis of real contradictions, without determinism, but with the radicalism necessary for the task of naming what is at stake.

The first hypothesis is the radicalization of the hybrid war against Brazil and against Lula. Donald Trump's re-election represents not only the return of a reactionary project to the leadership of the American state, but also the consolidation of a strategy of global domination through the controlled destabilization of peripheral democracies, especially those that dared to resume sovereign paths. Brazil is the number one target. And Lula, as already announced by Bannon, is the "last relevant enemy" before the total victory of planetary fascism. This war will not be fought with tanks, but with tariffs, cognitive sabotage, speculative attacks, lawfare, surgical judicializations, the fabrication of moral scandals, corrosive narratives, and international operations of symbolic siege.

The second hypothesis is that Trump will permanently refuse dialogue. Even if Lula maintains his stance of moderation, appeals for peace, diplomatic rationality, and openness to multilateral dialogue, Trump's USA will not respond. And not because Lula is wrong—but because the empire's objective is not balance, but submission. The strategy is to force the collapse of Brazilian institutions, generate a sense of isolation, and fuel internal instability. This refusal, paradoxically, will be a symbolic asset for Lula. It will make it clear that Brazil wants peace—and the empire wants war. International public opinion, especially in the Global South and in crisis-stricken Europe, will recognize Lula as a lucid voice surrounded by a decadent order in fury.

The third hypothesis is the intensification of internal destabilization, with an accumulation of tensions until October 2026. There is no doubt that the election year will be treated by the far-right as a moment of revenge. All instruments will be used: fake news on an industrial scale, co-opting of reserve military personnel, corporate blackmail, the creation of "scandals," and attempts to manufacture institutional ruptures via the Judiciary. The objective will be to produce a feeling of progressive ungovernability so that, by 2026, the stage will be set for the return of a far-right candidate—domesticated, colonized, willing to hand over the country's wealth in exchange for stability for the world's elite. This plan is already underway.

The fourth hypothesis, however, is the possible emergence of an international network of democratic resistance centered around Lula. The New York Times editorial was the first symptom of a shift. Many governments and social leaders in the Global South—and even democratic sectors in Europe and the US—have already realized that what is at stake is not "Brazil," but the very viability of democracy as a universal idea. Faced with the advance of barbarism, Lula could become the catalyst for a new global historical bloc, bringing together popular movements, sovereignist leaders, intellectuals, and even heads of state around a common agenda: peace, multilateralism, climate justice, redistribution of power, and democratic control over technology.

This is the central point of the dispute: either the future will be recolonized by the fascist algorithm of hybrid warfare, or it will be rebuilt from popular projects of sovereignty. Lula, due to his trajectory, legitimacy, and capacity for global articulation, is the only living public figure with real access across all these fields. No other leader today can speak with Xi Jinping and Pope Francis, with peasants and heads of state, with UN diplomats and grassroots activists—without being seen as a threat or an imposter. And that is precisely what makes him dangerous to the empire—and necessary for humanity.

Finally, the fifth hypothesis—which is not a prediction, but a call to action—is the need to reorganize the international democratic trenches, starting from Brazil. Time is short. The attack will be intense. But Brazil, in 2025, will once again occupy the center of history. And this is no coincidence: it is the result of a struggle that did not begin now and will not end in October 2026. The task for the coming months is clear: protect Lula, strengthen the democratic-popular project, dismantle the psychological warfare machine, and build national and international alliances in defense of life, dignity, and sovereignty.

Because if we lose Lula, we will lose more than a president. We will lose the last shield between humanity and the abyss.

Lula as a global historical figure: biography, synthesis, and comparison.

The life of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from his impoverished birth in the northeastern backlands to becoming one of the world's most recognized leaders, is not merely an individual biography. It is a microcosm of all the contradictions that Brazil and the world have faced throughout the centuries, condensed into one person, into his trajectory. Lula's story, with all its falls and ascents, its successes and failures, cannot be analyzed as a mere personal phenomenon. It is the manifestation of the class struggle in Brazil, the struggle for dignity, for the democratization of power, for resistance to the exploitation of global capital, and for the affirmation of the sovereignty of peoples. Lula is not just a charismatic leader—he is a historical figure who, through his life and work, challenges the pillars of the system that oppressed him.

To be born poor in the interior of Pernambuco, to grow up in the shadow of misery, to work as a metalworker and union leader, and then to become president of the Republic is not merely a personal ascent. This journey reflects a collective movement, the struggle of millions of Brazilians who, throughout the 20th century, attempted to break the chains of underdevelopment and dependency. Lula's experience is the synthesis of the fight for national sovereignty, the confrontation of poverty, the affirmation of the working class, and the construction of a new social order that prioritizes human needs over market profits.

Lula was not just the president of Brazil. He is, and always has been, the leader of the historical resistance against imperialism that attempts to control and subjugate the peoples of the Global South. His government represented the culmination of a strategy that began in the 1980s with the metalworkers' union movement and gained popular support in the following decade when the Workers' Party (PT) won the presidency and paved the way for national reconstruction. Lula was, and continues to be, the living expression of the challenge to international finance capital and all forms of oppression suffered by marginalized peoples.

His rise to the presidency in 2002 cannot be interpreted as a simple electoral victory. It was the victory of popular democracy over the obstacles imposed by economic and political elites who had long governed Brazil outside the realm of popular aspirations. Upon assuming office, Lula symbolized resistance to the market coups that were ruining the national economy and the construction of a project that, for the first time, placed Brazil in the position of an active and sovereign agent on the international stage.

Lula, with his unique figure, became a thorn in the side of imperialism, the global far-right, and conservative sectors in Brazil and the world. He stood firm in the face of external pressure to submit to the global financial order and made Brazil a protagonist in its own history. He not only rescued the values ​​of democracy and social welfare but also brought to the table issues that had previously been forbidden, such as national sovereignty and the need for an independent foreign policy, in a world dominated by American unipolarity.

The challenge Lula faces now—with the new waves of attacks, disinformation, and attempts to destroy the image of his leadership—is not just a fight to preserve his political legacy, but to defend the possibility of a different future for Brazil and the world. The constant criticism of him, the attempt to associate him with a "socialist threat," and the construction of hate narratives are merely desperate attempts to block what Lula represents: the possibility of a sovereign, democratic, and socially just Brazil.

Today, faced with the threats and challenges of the empire, Lula becomes the last genuine resistance against the advance of fascist obscurantism. His soft power is not merely an expression of his diplomatic skill, but a reflection of a profound historical process that positions him as the leader of a global movement for the maintenance of democracy, for the sovereignty of peoples, and against the rise of authoritarian regimes that attempt to subject countries to the control of great powers.

Lula's biography is the biography of Brazil, of the working class, of the poor people who never remained silent. Lula is the modern hero who, in his trajectory, synthesizes all the struggles for social justice and the defense of Enlightenment values ​​in times of growing obscurantism. His journey has not ended, and history will continue to write his name as the last great leader in the fight for sovereignty and humanity.

Between the coup and hope — Brazil at the center of the world

Brazil has returned to the center of the world. And not because of its economy, nor its commodities, but because of something infinitely more valuable: its capacity to offer the planet a project of civilization in times of barbarism. At a moment when the international order is collapsing under the weight of hybrid warfare, algorithmic manipulation, the total financialization of life, and the rise of the global far-right, Lula's Brazil emerges as the last open trench of democratic and popular sovereignty in the Global South.

The confrontation with Trump — more than a dispute between heads of state — synthesizes two absolutely incompatible worldviews. On one side, the recolonizing domination of an empire in crisis, which bets on instability to maintain its centrality. On the other, the concrete hope that a peripheral country can govern itself, engage in dialogue with everyone, and rebuild a civilizational pact based on social justice, multilateralism, and peace.

It is no coincidence that all the instruments of hybrid warfare are being mobilized against Lula: lawfare, economic sabotage, massive disinformation, media siege, diplomatic blackmail, and attempts at international isolation. The objective is clear: to prevent his symbolic leadership from continuing to radiate strength, legitimacy, and vision to the peoples of the Global South and to the democratic sectors of the world. What is at stake is not just his image or his government—it is the possibility of a world in which the poor can exist with dignity.

But Lula resists. And, in resisting, he makes his own existence a political statement, a line of defense against transnational fascism. His gesture of seeking dialogue, even when he knows it will be refused, is not naiveté—it is strategy. By extending his hand and being ignored, Lula forces the empire to show what it is: a power that does not tolerate the sovereignty of others, that does not negotiate with equals, that only recognizes vassals. And, in doing so, Lula transforms himself—once again—into the point of convergence of the democratic hopes of the 21st century.

Brazil, which has already been reduced to a laboratory for coups, can now be the radiating center of a new global pact. Not through the force of arms, but through the strength of a people who fight, of a national project that refuses to die, and of a leader who has not bowed down. If the 21st century has salvation, it will not come from the think tanks of Washington, nor from the algorithms of Palo Alto, nor from the arsenals of Tel Aviv. It will come from concrete experiences of popular resistance. And among all of them, that of Lula's Brazil is today the most powerful, the most symbolic, and the most threatening to the logic of global capital.

We stand between a coup and hope. The crossroads of 2025 demands clarity. What Lula represents is greater than his trajectory. He has become the historical figure of an era marked by catastrophes—and also by the struggle for collective survival. Protecting Lula is protecting democracy, multilateralism, informational sovereignty, the rights of peoples, and the future.

If the empire advances, it's because it knows the danger Lula represents. If the people protect him, it's because they know the promise he carries.

The time is now. History does not forgive cowardice. And Brazil has, at this moment, the rare chance to make its president not only a statesman—but a world reference for resistance, justice, and humanity.

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