Biden, Lula Set to Meet after Jan. 6-Like Brazil Insurrection
Biden, Lula Set to Meet after Jan. 6-Like Brazil Insurrection
“Lula wants to point to Biden as someone who defeated an authoritarian, anti-constitutional threat and lived to tell about it,” said AS/COA's Brian Winter to The Washington Post.
President Biden and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva might have more in common than they would like.
They’re both their country’s oldest presidents — Biden is 80 while Lula is 77 — who previously served at the highest levels of government.
More starkly, they came to power amid disturbing political turmoil only two years apart. They both campaigned on promises to return their countries to normalcy after four years of sometimes-chaotic rule by populist-style leaders. And they defeated incumbent presidents who refused to recognize the election results as legitimate, leading to insurrections in both their nations’ capitals — one on Jan. 6, 2021, and the other on Jan. 8, 2023.
On Friday, Biden and Lula will meet at the White House in what is intended as an important signal that their democracies are resilient.
“These are two leaders with so much in common, and I think they’re going to talk as much as they can about their shared experiences because that’s what will play best with their domestic audiences,” said Brian Winter, a Brazil expert and vice president at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas.
“Lula wants to point to Biden as someone who defeated an authoritarian, anti-constitutional threat and lived to tell about it,” Winter said. “There’s domestic benefit to Biden being able to point to Lula and say, ‘Hey, the United States is not the only country that has faced challenges from the authoritarian right.’”…
