BRASÍLIA—A federal tribunal exploded into chaos Tuesday during a hearing on the Brazil campaign tactics used by rival political coalitions ahead of the upcoming election. The court examined explosive allegations of reality-bending campaign strategies in São Paulo state. Legal representatives battled over the psychological sovereignty of millions of voters. The following is an official transcript of the proceedings.
PROSECUTOR: Mr. Vasconcelos, you served as the Chief of Optical Illusion for the campaign. Did you or did you not purchase a twelve-foot magic wand from a theatrical supply warehouse?
WITNESS: I did. But we only used it for crowd control at the major Brazil campaign rallies. It was a prop.
PROSECUTOR: A prop? Let the record show that on September 24, you waved this wand over a crowd of fifty thousand people and yelled a Latin phrase. Is it not true that the entire crowd immediately forgot the current inflation rate?
WITNESS: That was a collective patriotic sigh. It is a common phenomenon in South American politics.
PROSECUTOR: I see. Let us discuss the opponent's strategy then. Did your team not counter this by hiring three hundred professional hypnotists to stand in the front row of every debate?
WITNESS: Yes, but that is standard industry practice. Every major campaign in the Federal Senate of Brazil uses hypnotists. If we did not hypnotize them, they might actually look at our tax proposals. Nobody wants that. Not even the voters.
PROSECUTOR: So you admit that the entire Brazil campaign is a coordinated effort to replace voter consciousness with a warm, vague sense of impending triumph?
WITNESS: I am saying that if you show a voter a pie chart, you lose ten points in the polls. If you show them a glowing orb and play loud drums, they will follow you into a volcano. We chose the orb. Our opponents chose a larger orb. It is simply democracy at work.
