RUTHFULLY YOURS

Much was made during the campaign of Mr. Bolsonaro’s history of rude comments about women and minorities and about his pledge to use an iron fist to fight crime in poor neighborhoods.

He was labeled a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, a fascist, an advocate of torture and an aspiring dictator. His opponents gathered in the streets to denounce him and wrote withering diatribes against him in the press. The proudly “progressive” international media joined the fray, declaring him a threat to the environment and democracy.

It ought to have been enough to sink the Bolsonaro candidacy. Yet he prevailed, and it isn’t hard to see why: Brazilians are in the midst of a national awakening in which socialism—the alternative to a Bolsonaro presidency—has been put on trial. The resounding victory of Novo Party’s classical-liberal gubernatorial candidate Romeu Zema in the large state of Minas Gerais confirms that theory.

Mr. Haddad was the candidate of Brazil’s gigantic left-wing populist Workers’ Party, known as PT. He was also the handpicked successor to former two-term President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is in jail on a bribery conviction but remains popular with his supporters. Against Mr. Bolsonaro’s small Social Liberal Party, Mr. Haddad should have won walking away.

How Mr. Bolsonaro triumphed is worth examining because it suggests that something changed in this election. It can always change back, and it probably will. But for now the momentum is on the side of reform, and policy makers have a unique opportunity to advance liberty and prosperity in South America’s largest economy.