Viktor Orbán Goes Down. You're next, TACO Tyrant.
Perhaps he heeded Bolsonaro's 26-year prison sentence for trying to overthrow Brazil's government and decided to leave without winding up in the slammer.
The New York Times put it succinctly this morning as the Hungarians went to the polls:
Over 16 years, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party has repeatedly tweaked the electoral system to its advantage, making the vote free, but not entirely fair.
Their article, Many Polls Say Orban Will Lose. But He Has an Edge Even Before Voting Begins, is, even after the fact, a brilliant short history of this craven tyrant’s manipulations of his country, of the war in Ukraine, and of a learning-disabled Donald Trump, who heeded his advice between his first and second administrations and won again. But the question of whether Trump really did win the last election, given the NSA’s evaluation of the last election, will haunt Trump all his days. And of course, if Trump went into this last election as the acolyte of Bolsonaro and Orbán, the adept manipulation of voting machines and voting rules—not to say the possible interference of Elon Musk—he would have used every trick they have played on everyone.
These three, known in this house as the Tawdry Triumvirate, have done incalculable damage to their countries, their allies, and their planet. And their see-saw effect has been deadly:
Bolsonaro, the Trump of the Tropics
First, there’s Bolsonaro, who let the Amazon burn and infamously said that he could eat an Amazon Basin indigenous person—a black person, of course.
Racist, sexist, vile, and corrupt, Bolsonaro came to Florida just after his defeat by Lula da Silva, to hang out near Donald Trump, who deeply admires him.
But Bolsonaro lost his welcome in the United States and was sent back home to face charges that he attempted to have Lula da Silva, the man who defeated him, killed. That’s killed, as in assassinated.
Bolsonaro also tried to overthrow the government but couldn’t quite pull it off.
He’s doing 26 years in a Brazilian prison with the melodrama of allegedly having a serious problem with asthma. He may. But that’s not the reason he lost a medical reprieve that sent him home with an ankle bracelet. Friends tried to hack the tracking device on his lovely anklet and had a plane ready to take him out of the country. Brazilian courts yanked his chain all the way back to a prison cell, and he won’t be treated to Ankle Bracelet Heaven again, ever.
Trump has tried everything to get Bolsonaro, known as the “Trump of the Tropics,” out of jail. He tried to bully da Silva and the Brazil supreme court, to no avail. Writes Time Magazine, Trump posted a letter to current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Truth Social. His Eloquence speaks:
“I knew and dealt with former President Jair Bolsonaro, and respected him greatly, as did most other Leaders of Countries,” Trump wrote. “The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace. This Trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”
Of course, Bolsonaro’s attempted coup drew comparisons at the time to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in the U.S. by Trump supporters after Trump lost his first reelection campaign.
Mr. Grammar Savvy (speciality: upper and lower cases) continues:
“Brazil is doing a terrible thing on their treatment of former President Jair Bolsonaro. I have watched, as has the World, as they have done nothing but come after him, day after day, night after night, month after month, year after year! He is not guilty of anything, except having fought for THE PEOPLE. I have gotten to know Jair Bolsonaro, and he was a strong Leader, who truly loved his Country — Also, a very tough negotiator on TRADE. His Election was very close and now, he is leading in the Polls. This is nothing more, or less, than an attack on a Political Opponent — Something I know much about! It happened to me, times 10, and now our Country is the ‘HOTTEST’ in the World! The Great People of Brazil will not stand for what they are doing to their former President. I’ll be watching the WITCH HUNT of Jair Bolsonaro, his family, and thousands of his supporters, very closely. The only Trial that should be happening is a Trial by the Voters of Brazil — It’s called an Election. LEAVE BOLSONARO ALONE!”
(Really, nothing written by anyone indicts Trump’s language skills more profoundly than his own prose. If he were French, he would be indicted by the murder of his Mother Language.)
Trump raised Brazil’s tariffs to 50% to “rectify the grave injustices of the current regime” and make the U.S.-Brazil trade relationship more “reciprocal,” despite the fact that the U.S. running a trade surplus with Brazil. Trump also announced another 10% additional tariff on countries that align themselves with the “anti-American” policies of the BRICS group, of which Brazil is a founding member.
In a post on X, Lula forcefully rebuked Trump’s message, writing:
“Brazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage.” … [Brazil’s judicial proceedings] “are not subject to any interference or threats that could compromise the independence of national institutions” … “F0reedom of expression must not be confused with aggression or violent practices.” [All interests] “whether domestic or foreign—must comply with Brazilian law in order to operate within our territory,” and that “tariff increases will be addressed in accordance with Brazil’s Economic Reciprocity Law.”
Brazil’s Reciprocity Law states that Brazil can suspend concessions with other countries in trade, investments, and obligations if unilateral measures imposed on Brazil harm its economic competitiveness.
According to CNN: “This marks the first time in months another country has threatened to match Trump’s tariff threat.”
“Sovereignty, respect and the unwavering defense of the interests of the Brazilian people are the values that guide our relationship with the world,” Lula concluded.
Bolsonaro is still in jail and will likely die there.
Orbán
So … just wondering … why would Orbán visit Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago just months before the last election? Reports AP in the summer of 2025.
The European Union’s longest-serving leader has become an icon to some conservative populists for championing what he calls “illiberal democracy,” which includes restrictions on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. He has also cracked down on the press and judiciary in Hungary and been accused by the EU of violating rule-of-law and democracy standards.
The Mar-a-Lago meeting — Orbán’s second since March — came as the latest stop on what he calls a “peace mission” aimed at finding a path toward ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
[Read: the complete destruction of Ukraine and a redux of the starvation and murder of a million Ukrainians in the early 20th century. What a sweetie this guy is.]
Widely considered to have the warmest relations with the Kremlin among all EU leaders, Orbán made an unannounced visit last week to Kyiv, where he held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Some of his critics interpreted the Kyiv visit as a sign that Hungary could take steps closer to the EU mainstream’s pro-Ukraine stance as it took over the bloc’s six-month rotating presidency earlier this month.
But those hopes were dashed when he made an unannounced trip to Moscow days later to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a rare trip to Russia by a European leader that drew condemnation from Kyiv and other European capitals.
This last week, the ever-failing, ever-dark, ever-humiliating, ever tacky0 J.D. Vance cheered on Hungary’s dirtiest politician in history, and he lost. J.D., that makes you two for two this week.
Donald J. Trump, aka “The Loser”
So, first Donald Trump threatens Brazil over Bolsonaro, sends Vance to Hungary and then to negotiate the end of his stupid war with Iran—Lordy, how badly can one man be set up in one week?!—and now, here he is, all alone, with a 39.6 approval rating, an unwinnable war of his own making, a hopping mad electorate, and a wife trying to do a preemptive strike on Amanda Ungaro, who has every skeleton in Melania’s closet—comprising a veritable Wadi-us-Salaam* of graves—a whitewash that will fail.
Meanwhile, what do we get? An Arc de Trashy, a one-week reprieve on the tawdriest ballroom ever to damn Earth in the eyes of every peering alien civilization, and a violent man headed for defeat and probably prison.
And he has an adolescent drunk at the helm of the biggest war machine on earth. What the F-word-in-gerund-form + f-word is wrong with these people?
What do we want? Two words: 25th Amendment, and the Republicans better play ball now, or they will pay for this with the destruction of their whole party. It won’t be violent. They’ll just have died of the flesh-eating virus they let loose upon the world.
Wadi-us-Salaam cemetery in Najaf, Iraq spreads across 600 hectares (1,485 acres) and contains five millions graves.
Fabulous column! What a TREMENDOUS sense of relief I feel knowing the wonderful results of the Hungarian elections. America: WE CAN DO IT, TOO!!! [Please don't tell me that all of those graves are the result of the U.S. war against Iraq... I suspect that many were the result of Saddam's sadism?]