The image shows a poster put up unofficially by activists at a bus stop near St. Thomas’ Hospital and Westminster Bridge, in London, England, on October 21, 2026.
For Brazilian democrats, criticizing Bolsonarism is not an endorsement of Lulopetism. Lula and the PT are using this trick in Brazil and abroad to pose as saviors of democracy. They are taking advantage of the ignorance and lack of democratic conviction of academics, journalists, and political analysts who, motivated by horror at right-wing populism (Trump and MAGA, Reform UK, the AfD, Rassemblement National, Chega, Vox, etc.), turn a blind eye to the equally illiberal, anti-pluralist, and hegemonistic character of left-wing populism.
But to see how this populist left is also not democratic (in the liberal sense of the term), it would suffice to ask its leaders and followers eight questions:
1 - Do you consider it legitimate to adopt a “anything goes” approach in the political and electoral struggle (using and abusing public resources to buy voters, and packing the judiciary and police to act for political purposes in your favor) in order to defeat the alleged fascism of right-wing populism?
2 - Do you support the Ukrainian resistance to the invasion by the dictator Putin?
3 - Do you defend Taiwan’s independence against the annexation threats from China’s dictator Xi Jinping?
4 - Do you endorse the slogan “Palestine free from the river to the sea”?
5 - Do you regard Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and more than a dozen terrorist groups in Iraq, Syria, and other countries in the Middle East, coordinated by the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), as legitimate resistance to Yankee imperialism and European neocolonialism?
6 - Do you root for the Iranian dictatorship in its war against Israel, despite that authoritarian regime’s oppression of women and political persecution of Iranian opposition groups?
7 - Do you support the BRICS as a political articulation of an imaginary Global South, even knowing that it is composed of 80% dictatorships and that there is not a single liberal democracy in the group?
8 - Do you criticize right-wing authoritarian regimes while compromising with left-wing autocracies (such as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Angola, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, etc.) on the assumption that they are supposedly fighting imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism?
No left-wing populism passes this democracy test (neither that of Lula and the PT, nor that of Claudia Sheinbaum and Morena, nor that of Mélenchon and La France Insoumise, nor that of Jan van Aken and Die Linke, nor that of Ramaphosa and the ANC, etc.).
Take the test to see for yourselves.