David W. Singer

Go vote! It’s your civic duty!!

The Strongmen Are Losing Serbia and Brazil voted on the same day, and both said no. On Sunday, voters in two very different countries delivered the same verdict. In Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, who has ruled with near-absolute power for 14 years and carried Vladimir Putin's endorsement into the race, conceded defeat to the Students' List, a movement born of protests after a train station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad in 2024 and killed 16 people. Serbians saw that tragedy for what it was: the product of corruption, cronyism and a government that answered to itself. Turnout was the highest since 2000. Vučić blamed independent media, unnamed European governments and an "American deep state." He lost anyway, by roughly half a million votes. Hours later in Brazil, Lula da Silva came from behind to defeat Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the former president and the candidate Donald Trump welcomed to the White House this summer. It was the first time since 1985 that the first-round runner-up won Brazil's presidency. Trump's tariffs were meant as leverage over Latin America's largest economy. Instead, Brazilians treated the election as a question of sovereignty and chose not to hand their country to Washington's preferred candidate. Bolsonaro is reportedly refusing to concede, a page from a familiar playbook. Add Hungary, where Viktor Orbán, Europe's model for illiberal democracy and a favorite of both Trump and Putin, was swept from power in April, and a pattern emerges. The strongman brand of grievance, corruption and foreign patronage is running into a wall: voters who want accountable government. Being endorsed by Putin or embraced by Trump has become a liability, not an asset. None of these victories is guaranteed to last. Vučić's machine will not disappear overnight, Brazil remains deeply divided, and the hard work of governing starts now. But the lesson for democrats everywhere is clear. Strongmen look invincible until people show up and vote. Israelis vote tomorrow. Americans vote in nine days. Your vote is your voice. And it’s powerful!