PATHETIC IS THE TRUMP BRAND:

For the radical fringes of the movement, the outcome marked a disappointing end to what has been a sad time. Their leader, Bolsonaro himself, is hardly a source of inspiration. Moody and largely silent since his narrow second-round election defeat at the end of October, the former army captain has quit the country. Deprived of the political immunity he once enjoyed, the former president reportedly fears being a target of legal action and has gone to ground in Florida, a US state much favoured by other anti-communist conservatives from Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America.

Nor have the much-lauded soldiers been much use. For more than two months thousands of activists have been squatting in informal camps set up outside barracks from where they have fruitlessly urged intervention. Many of the campers have drifted away. Many of those who remain are conspiracist fantasists. Some harbour the illusion, for instance, that Gen Augusto Heleno, perhaps the most hardline of Bolsonaro's military allies, is already exercising power from behind the scenes and that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the winner in October, has already been deposed.

In the real world, meanwhile, Lula has steadily begun to organise a new government. At a cost, he has struck an alliance with the self-seeking centre and centre-right politicians of the Centrão, or big centre, in a bid to ensure congressional support. Workers' party loyalists occupy key cabinet posts, but jobs have been found for leaders from a range of more conservative allied parties, including some with very dubious credentials. Lula has taken action to reverse some of the most damaging measures of the Bolsonaro era by, for instance, tightening controls on the use of weapons.

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