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Analysis
Brazil’s ex-President Jair Bolsonaro sentenced to 27 years for coup plot
Former president Jair Messias Bolsonaro is inaugurating Route 22 in eight cities in Rio Grande do Norte, starting with the cities of Extremoz, Natal, Parnamirim, and Mossoro, in Natal, Brazil, on August 16, 2024.
Brazil’s Supreme Court has convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro of plotting a coup to stay in power after losing the 2022 election — a historic first in a country that’s lived through 15 coups.
Four of the court’s five justices voted to find Bolsonaro and seven allies, including his running mate and top military officials, guilty of conspiring to overturn the result and hatching a plan to kill their opponent, current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro, who had already been banned from seeking public office again, has been sentenced to a 27-year prison sentence. He is expected to appeal.
How we got here. Bolsonaro, a former army captain far-right firebrand who was elected president in 2018, spent the 2022 re-election campaign spreading claims of election fraud that were disproven by official investigations. After losing to his leftwing nemesis Lula, his supporters stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace on Jan. 8, 2023, demanding the military step in and overturn the results.
In recent weeks, the US has put pressure on Brazil over the trial. Bolsonaro is a close ally – and stylistic emulator – of US president Donald Trump, who has publicly pressured Lula to force the court to drop the charges, threatening high tariffs, sanctions on court justices, and other punitive measures on Latin America’s largest economy.
Those attacks have seemingly backfired – boosting the popularity of the aging and unpopular Lula, who has styled himself as a defender of Brazilian honor and sovereignty. The court justices, meanwhile, appear not to have been swayed by American pressure.
But Bolsonaro’s movement isn’t going away. Eurasia Group Brazil expert Silvio Cascione warns this is not the “turning of the page” many of Bolsonaro’s opponents may hope for. The ruling “crystallizes Brazil’s deep polarization rather than resolving it,” he said. Public opinion is split almost evenly: 43% say the trial was unfair, 51% back the conviction.
“The real concern isn't massive street protests,” Cascione says, “but rather the continued erosion of institutional trust that's been poisoning Brazilian politics for years. Courts, media, and political parties all suffer from a credibility deficit.”
Bolsonaro is still the kingmaker of the Brazilian right. Polls still show he’d be the strongest challenger to Lula in next year’s presidential election, so his endorsement could still shape the race. São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas has already emerged as a top heir to Bolsonaro’s movement, courting the former president’s base and floating an amnesty bill in Congress.
The conviction is set to roil relations with Washington. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the ruling a “witch hunt” and signaled possible retaliation, including sanctions on the justices who voted to convict.
If so, Brazil is unlikely to hit back directly, as an actual trade war with the world’s largest economy – and a major source of investment – could get ugly fast.
But tensions with Washington could still have a political upside for Lula. “In what promises to be a highly competitive race,” says Cascione, “playing the victim of American bullying could actually help Lula
A drone view shows the scene where U.S. right-wing activist, commentator, Charlie Kirk, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, was fatally shot during an event at Utah Valley University, in Orem, Utah, U.S. September 11, 2025.
The assassination of 31-year old conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a college event in Utah yesterday threatened to plunge a deeply divided America further into a cycle of rising political violence.
Who was Charlie Kirk? The founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organization active on more than 3,500 college campuses. Kirk built his formidable brand by challenging students, in particular liberals, to open debates on hot-button culture war issues.
An ultra-conservative Evangelical Christian, he advocated for values of faith, family, and patriotism. He held divisive views on race, women in the workplace, gun control, and gay marriage.
A titan in the MAGA movement. Kirk’s outreach to young voters is considered a major reason why Donald Trump won 56% of young male voters in the 2024 election.
The manhunt: The shooter remains on the loose, and nothing is known about their background or motivations. A weapon and other evidence were reportedly recovered near the scene of the killing on Thursday morning.
The context: Violence against prominent political figures is becoming more commonplace in America, and it affects both sides of the political divide. Earlier this year, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, survived an arson attack. Two months later, two Democratic state lawmakers in Minnesota were assassinated. Last year, of course, there were two separate attempts on Donald Trump’s life. A recent Marist poll found that 73% of Americans see political violence as a major problem.
The White House response: a crackdown on “the left”? In a four minute special address from the White House, President Trump eulogized Kirk and condemned radicalism and violence. He blamed “the left” – pledging to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including those who fund it.” This framing has raised concerns in some quarters about a possible wider crackdown on ideological opponents of the White House.
Most politicians on both sides condemned the killing but tensions simmered beneath the surface. Congress erupted into a shouting match over GOP leader Mike Johnson’s call for a moment of silence for Kirk on the same day as a school shooting that went largely unmentioned. Many prominent MAGA influencers and supporters of Trump responded with outrage, blaming Democrats or liberals for the killing, and claiming Kirk as a martyr.
Some Democrats responded to Kirk’s murder with calls for more gun control. But Eurasia Group US expert Noah Daponte-Smith says those are unlikely to make headway. Kirk himself was a staunch opponent of tighter gun laws, once declaring, in typically controversial style, “it’s worth the cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”
Are things about to get worse? Daponte-Smith says that while an escalatory cycle can certainly still be avoided, “there is a higher potential for more political violence.”Trump's silhouette as a wrecking ball banging into the Federal Reserve.
President Trump has made no secret of his longstanding desire for lower interest rates to juice the economy and reduce the cost of servicing the $30 trillion federal debt. But his attacks on the Federal Reserve will prove self-defeating, driving up borrowing costs for American consumers, businesses, and the federal government.
For months, the president has threatened and insulted Fed chair Jerome Powell for refusing to cut rates, even toying with the idea of firing him over supposed (and nakedly pretextual) cost overruns on the renovation of the Fed’s headquarters. Yet despite the bluster, he has stopped short of the one move advisers warned him could turn financial markets against him: actually sacking him. Why risk it when Powell’s term as chair expires in May, at which point Trump (who appointed him in 2018) will get to select a replacement more willing to do his bidding?
The president even got an unexpected chance to fill a Federal Reserve Board seat last month when Fed governor Adriana Kugler resigned under suspiciously hasty circumstances before the end of her term, allowing Trump to nominate his economic advisor Stephen Miran to succeed her. You’d think that’d be good enough to keep him placated for a while. Not so.
On Aug. 25, Trump posted a letter to Truth Social announcing he was firing Federal Reserve Board governor Lisa Cook over mortgage fraud allegations from before she joined the Fed. This unprecedented escalation – the first attempt to fire a Fed governor in presidential history – followed a politically motivated investigation started by the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Bill Pulte, a Trump loyalist and donor who has weaponized his government position to make similar accusations against other MAGA political enemies (California Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James).
Cook, a Biden appointee whose term is set to run until 2038, has refused to resign and is contesting the dismissal. The Supreme Court recently ruled that presidents have wide latitude to fire the heads of independent agencies, but it made a point to carve out an exception for the Fed, whose governors can only be removed “for cause.” What that means exactly, no one knows … because no president has ever tried to fire a Fed governor. Until now.
Although the Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into the allegations, Cook hasn’t yet been charged with a crime. It’s unclear whether an allegation of malfeasance that predates Cook’s employment at the Fed and is unrelated to her job meets the judicial bar for “cause” set by the Federal Reserve Act. The matter will be decided by the courts, which granted Cook a preliminary injunction last night, allowing her to stay in the job while the case gets litigated.
Of course, this isn't really about mortgage fraud – it's about seizing control of the Fed. Trump’s not coy about the endgame. On Aug. 26, the president bragged that “We’ll have a majority very shortly, so that’ll be great.” Trump already has two appointees on the Federal Reserve Board, Chris Waller (a favorite to succeed Powell as chair) and Michelle Bowman, and he will likely get a third soon once Miran gets confirmed. If the president ultimately succeeds in pushing out Cook, he’ll have appointed four of the board’s seven members, possibly before Powell even steps down.
That wouldn’t be enough to directly control the 12-person Federal Open Market Committee that sets rates. But a four-person Federal Reserve Board majority would have veto power over the appointment of the regional Fed presidents who sit on the FOMC – and those presidents just so happen to be up for reapproval for five-year terms at the end of February in what's normally a rubber-stamp vote, raising the stakes of both the outcome and the timing of the Cook ruling. Not that the administration needs to actually fire every independent-minded dissenter to chill dissent: sometimes, the demonstration effect of seeing some of your colleagues’ lives ruined is enough to sway behavior.
Yet even if Trump succeeds in stacking the FOMC with loyalists (a big if), the president will still struggle to get what he wants most out of this whole enterprise: substantially lower borrowing costs.
The crux of the issue is that the Fed only has direct control over short-term interest rates, but most borrowers care about long-term rates, which are determined by market expectations of future economic growth, inflation, and fiscal policy. The more the president leans on the Fed, the greater the compensation demanded to hold long-term bonds, as investors lose confidence in the Fed’s ability to keep inflation under control no matter the political costs to the president.
Accordingly, the benefits to Trump of pushing for lower interest rates than merited by economic conditions would likely be offset by large and sustained increases in long-term yields. In the worst-case scenario, Trump forces the Fed to set rates inappropriately low, causing inflation to rise and damaging the Fed’s credibility. By the time the president starts feeling the political pain of runaway prices and orders the Fed to reverse course, the genie is already out of the bottle: inflation expectations are unanchored, long-term rates have spiked, and the Fed is forced to print ever more money to pay for the mounting costs of servicing a growing debt pile. This may sound like the story of an emerging market, but it’s becoming suddenly plausible for the United States.
The last time a US president messed with the Fed’s independence was when Richard Nixon strong-armed Fed chair Arthur Burns into keeping rates low ahead of the 1972 presidential election, causing inflation to spike. It took a decade and punishingly high interest rates to get runaway inflation under control and rebuild the Fed’s credibility, long since understood to be a key pillar of America’s world-beating economy and the dollar’s reserve currency status. Most Wall Street leaders understand the risks of going down the same path again, even if they are too timid to speak out publicly against it (with few exceptions).
So why the muted market reaction? Maybe investors doubt Trump can pull this off. After all, we've been down this road with President Trump before – he's been threatening the Fed since 2017 to little effect. Or maybe investors assume he'll back down in the face of any significant bond market fallout – the so-called TACO trade. But what if that market calm emboldens him to push harder? By the time investors wake up, the damage may be done. As Hemingway wrote about bankruptcy, crises happen gradually, then suddenly.
The real irony? Trump is ramping up his Fed attacks just as he's about to start getting the rate cuts he wants – though not for reasons he'll like. Two weak jobs reports show his tariffs, immigration crackdown, and policy volatility are beginning to weigh on the labor market. The Fed will almost certainly cut rates next week, even if not as aggressively as Trump demands given signs of rising inflation.
If Trump truly wants to lower borrowing costs for Americans, he should stop attacking the Fed and start cutting the deficit. Otherwise, the president will head into the midterms with a slowing economy, soaring prices, and higher long-term rates. Turns out not even the world’s most powerful man can bully bond markets into submission.
The Nepalese government’s decision last week to ban several social platforms has touched off an ongoing wave of deadly unrest in the South Asian country of 30 million.
The Nepalese government’s decision last week to ban several social platforms has touched off an ongoing wave of deadly unrest in the South Asian country of 30 million. The parliament has been burned, dozens of protesters have been killed, and earlier this week the prime minister resigned.
Nepal, which abolished the monarchy in 2008 after a decades-long Maoist insurgency, has been no stranger to political upheavals since then. But this is the first time such a strong and sustained protest movement has emerged, and it is being led by young people.
To understand why this so-called “Gen Z” revolution is taking place, let’s use three terms that will be familiar to our very-online, younger readers.
“Sus.”
“Nepo babies.”
“Securing the bag.”
Let’s start with “sus.” One of the underlying sources of resentment is corrupt politicians. How bad is it? A watchdog group ranked the Himalayan nation as one of the most corrupt countries in Asia.
The examples are manifold, but to take one good one: $71 million was embezzled during the construction of an airport completed last year. Corruption is reportedly rife among low-level police officers. And Nepali officials reportedly stole funds from people seeking work in the United States, promising to provide papers that would allow them to enter the US as Bhutanese refugees.
All of that is extremely “sus” behavior — small wonder that public trust of politicians in Nepal ranked 121 out 137 countries surveyed by the Center for South Asian Studies.
This bleeds into the resentment of “nepo babies” – ie, the rich kids of powerful elites. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in Asia, but that hasn’t stopped the children of politicians from living lavish lifestyles, which they often flaunt openly on social media. Ahead of the protests, compilation videos of government officials' children went viral on TikTok. In one, images of Sayuj Parajuli, the son of former Nepali Supreme Court Chief Justice Gopal Parajuli, was posted with the caption “Openly flexing luxury cars and watches on social media. Aren’t we tired of them by now?”
Underlying much of this resentment is the challenge of “securing of the bag”, ie, making a viable living. Many Nepalis, especially young ones, have a hard time finding jobs. The official unemployment rate is 12.6%, but youth unemployment is north of 20%. As a result, many young people have been forced to seek opportunities abroad, especially in construction and agriculture.
This all erupted last Thursday when the government banned 26 social media sites to quell the “nepo babies” videos and the targeting of politicians online. Thousands of young people, wearing school and college uniforms to emphasize their age, took to the streets. Although the ban was later lifted the unrest and uncertainty have continued.
Could outside players get involved? Nepal is sandwiched between Asian giants India and China, which have both vied for influence there in the past, in part because of Nepal’s ample hydropower resources. But for now, at least, Eurasia Group expert Rahul Bhatia says “China and India are taking a wait-and-watch approach.” Both countries have called for the restoration of peace and stability, but are avoiding direct intervention. “Any country seen as close to the Nepalese government would risk incurring the anger of the protestors,” says Bhatia.
So what’s next? Protesters are demanding accountability from the government. Discontent has grown toward Nepal’s two dominant political forces — the Nepali Congress and Prime Minister Oli’s Communist Party — which are governing together in a coalition for the first time. And after security forces killed 19 protesters, domestic and international institutions are calling for investigations into whether there was “unnecessary or disproportionate use of force.”
“It is unclear what the new Nepalese political order will look like,” says Bhatia. “ But one thing that’s clear is that the old guard of Nepalese politicians, who had taken turns at the helm, will not be a part of it.”
Or, to put it in the proper Gen-Z vernacular, “they’re cooked.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba adjusts his glasses during a press conference as he announces his resignation, in Tokyo, Japan, on September 7, 2025.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s resignation announcement on Sunday triggered the country’s second leadership battle in less than a year, plunging his center-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) deeper into a political crisis.
The party has held power for most of the last 70 years, but recently lost majorities in both houses of the National Diet and suffered a historic defeat in Tokyo’s city council elections. This string of defeats, combined with a stagnant economy and higher inflation, spelt the end for Ishiba.
The LDP must now select a new party leader, who is likely to replace Ishiba as prime minister. That process is likely to unfold in October, though it could come sooner given the urgency of the situation.
To better understand how the leader of Japan, the world’s fourth largest economy, got into this mess after less than a year in power, and who is most likely to replace him, GZERO spoke to one of the top experts on Japanese politics: Eurasia Group’s Japan Director David Boling.
GZERO: Why did Ishiba resign?
Boling: “Three strikes, you’re out,” is probably the most compelling argument against Ishiba. He basically was the leader of the party, and they had three elections where they lost. After that upper house election in July, there was a pretty hard push by a lot of conservatives to call for a special election. Ishiba has a three-year term that started last September, when he was elected. It is unprecedented for the LDP to call for basically a midterm intraparty election. Ishiba was able to stall that for a while, but the momentum started to come back strong.
Last week, they had set up a vote on Monday for whether to have a leadership election, and Ishiba saw the writing on the wall over the weekend. Instead of seeing how this special election would turn out, he could tell that he didn’t have the votes.
Who are the favorites to replace him, and what are their stances?
The two favorites to replace him are well known – they came in right behind Ishiba in the party leadership vote last September.
The person who finished second behind Ishiba was Sanae Takaichi. She is conservative, nationalistic, and a proponent of “Abenomics,” which is loose monetary and fiscal policy. But she’s probably best known for her nationalistic views. She’s a hawk. [She would also be Japan’s first female prime minister.] The person who placed third is Shinjiro Koizumi, a well known name in Japan because his father was prime minister. He’s young, charismatic, and popular. Since they are both members of the LDP, both candidates are broadly pro-US alliance, and right of center. I would put Koizumi as more moderate, and Takaichi as more conservative.
Last thing: what’s the biggest thing to watch out for going forward, once the new leader is determined?
Last October, the LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito lost their lower house majority, so they now have to work with one of the opposition parties to have enough votes to elect the new LDP leader as prime minister again. I think that it is very likely that whoever is the LDP president will become the next Japanese prime minister, but there will have to be some sort of deal worked out with the opposition parties to have enough votes to approve that person as the next prime minister. The LDP-Komeito coalition may have to make concessions on items for the annual budget, agreeing to spending or taxing provisions favored by the opposition. So that will be the next big watch point.
A girl is inoculated against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during a vaccination event hosted by Miami-Dade County and Miami Heat, at FTX Arena in Miami, Florida, USA, on August 5, 2021.
On Sept. 4 Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced plans to repeal childhood vaccine mandates in the state’s public schools. Ladapo likened mandates to “slavery” while Governor Ron DeSantis emphasized the importance of protecting medical freedom.
The decision makes Florida the first state in 45 years to seek to make childhood vaccines optional, and has serious implications for public health and states’ rights. Advocates cheer it as a triumph for medical freedom and parental rights, while opponents decry it as a step back in the fight against infectious disease – and, possibly, a risk to the health of the nation.
Vaccine mandates date back decades
The state of Massachusetts implemented the first US vaccination requirements for smallpox in the 1850s, and by 1900, nearly half of the states had done the same. The federal government enacted its first Childhood Immunization Initiative in the 1960s after a major measles outbreak, recommending a common vaccine schedule, and President Bill Clinton implemented another in 1993 to combat polio, mumps, measles, whooping cough, and diphtheria.
Since 1980, all US states have all had vaccine mandates for public schools, but have the right to grant medical exemptions for students who are allergic, immunocompromised or otherwise cannot tolerate vaccines, as well as non medical exemptions on religious or philosophical grounds. In the 2024-2025 school year, 3.6% of students nationwide had an exemption for at least one vaccine, nearly double the rate in 2021-2022. Idaho and Alaska had the highest rates of exemptions, 15.4%, and 9.4%, respectively, mostly for non-medical reasons.
What is Florida planning?
The Florida Department of Health will end the vaccine mandate for hepatitis B, chickenpox, Hib influenza and pneumococcal diseases such as meningitis, beginning 90 days from now. The new rules may not take effect this school year at all, however, because changes to state vaccine mandates require legislative amendment. Florida’s Democratic minority has vowed to fight them; and even if they do pass, there could still be lawsuits from parents, teachers, teachers unions, and vaccine advocates.
Medical freedom, states rights and public health
Florida’s mandate repeal revives the question of how far can states push policies that can impact citizens of other states. Doctors caution that Florida’s status as a major tourist destination could put at risk immunocompromised travelers or those whose vaccines are not up to date. These travelers could also bring illness back home, potentially infecting other vulnerable populations.
Defenders of Florida’s move, however, say this isn’t just an issue of states’ rights, but of personal freedom and parental rights. Ladapo admitted that he had not studied the impact of the repeal on the spread of disease, but said that “It’s an issue of right and wrong,” saying earlier, “Who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?” President Donald Trump countered Friday, however, that “you have some vaccines that are so amazing, the polio vaccine,” that “should be used; otherwise, some people are going to catch it, and they endanger other people.”
Health as an ideological divide
The public is split on changes to federal vaccine policy, largely along partisan lines. A recent poll by KFF about the federal reduction in the availability of COVID vaccines found two in ten Americans, including 41% of Republicans, think these changes will make people safer, while about one-third of respondents including most Democrats (62%) and four in ten independents (41%) say they will make people less safe.
State legislation could similarly divide along ideological lines. The Democratic governors of California, Oregon, and Washington have formed the West Coast Health Alliance to “uphold scientific standards” in defiance of MAHA policy. Similarly, the blue-leaning states of Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are looking at working together on immunization policy and guidance that differs from MAHA criticism of vaccines.
Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage gestures as he attends the party's national conference at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, United Kingdom, on September 5, 2025.
The big political news out of Europe this week was that right-wing populist parties are now, for the first time, leading the polls in Europe’s three largest economies.
In the United Kingdom, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party leads the polls with 31% support, a full ten points ahead of the Labour Party of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has had a lousy first year in office.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party is clocking 33% support, eight points ahead of the hard-left Front Populaire grouping, and a whopping 17 points ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s beleaguered Ensemble coalition.
In Germany, Alternative for Germany (AfD) has pulled into the lead with 26%, just a single point ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU coalition.
And don’t forget Italy, where Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has bucked the general trend of incumbent woes, keeping her hard-right Fratelli di Italia party atop the polls at 29%, seven points ahead of the opposition PD, an establishment party of the center left.
Taken together, this all means that if elections were held today, it’s at least possible that Europe’s four largest economies could come under the control of rightwing nationalist parties that until fairly recently were considered “fringe” groups.
Those elections are not, of course, being held today. France won’t vote for president until 2027, and none of the big three are required to hold legislative elections until 2029, although snap elections are a distinct possibility given the leadership woes. This is especially true in France, where the government is now in a near-permanent state of hanging-by-a-thread.
But anti-establishment parties in Europe continue to defy wave after wave of predictions that populism has “peaked.” To understand why that is, and what a Europe run by populist nationalists might look like, we sat down with one of the smartest people on this subject, Eurasia Group’s Managing Director for Europe, Mujtaba “Mij” Rahman.
Alex Kliment, GZERO Media: Mij, populist parties just keep getting more and more popular in Europe – why?
Mujtaba Rahman: It’s primarily to do with the inability of governments to address the two or three things that are driving absolute exasperation with incumbent leaders -- and that's concerns over both legal and illegal migration, issues around cost of living and the economy, and then just a general sense that the elites are distant, remote, and only in it for themselves. And that trend is playing out pervasively now in these countries.
It seems like leaders simply aren’t able to respond effectively. Why?
Starmer is trying a technocratic approach, (and it) doesn’t look like it’s working. Macron’s approach was technocratic and political – destroy the existing party system, create a new third way and use that as the barrier against populism. He’s completely failed. And Merz formula seems to be one where he’s trying to boost Germany’s growth prospects while also co-opting the language of the hard right on immigration to try and constrain the performance of the AfD. Is the German formula going to be better given the slightly healthier position of their economy? Maybe.
What does Europe look like if, in fact, the largest economies come under populist nationalist control?
The European Union as we know and understand it today would cease to exist with, say, a Marine Le Pen in the Elysee Palace. It would be a Europe of nation states, atrophying from within because Europe as a polity wouldn’t be able to deliver anything. You wouldn’t be able to build consensus on anything. And so Europe in the eyes of voters would become more and more delegitimized. You’d effectively go back to national capitals loosely coordinating policy as and when they felt their interests overlapped.
What’s the one thing you think people often get wrong when they look at this story?
The resilience of European voters and institutions in these democracies, to prevent the far right from winning and constraining them when they do. But still, these countries are at risk and there are absolutely political outcomes one could imagine that would completely rock these democracies at the core, and create major existential questions for the European Union.