This article presents a case study (nationalistic resurgence in Brazil) in order to analyzing ongoing changes at domestic politics and foreign relations in Brazil across the last 35 years. It portrays a qualitative analysis informed by a bibliographic revision of the aforementioned topics. After the 2008 crisis the side-effects of globalization have been certified by resurgent populisms with a nationalistic bent – with Donald Trump’s election providing a benchmark in this respect. We propose that – in spite of Jair Bolsonaro’s sudden ascent in 2018 – Brazil do not readily fit into this picture of global turmoil. Nationalism is a constitutive feature of the Brazilian polis. It remained an untapped resource across the first decades of the new century – triggered by the crisis, well ahead Trump’s election. The 2008 crisis curtailed Brazil’s rise as a globalized emerging power. The political constellations that rule the country ever since have digged the nationalistic well from different standpoints, in an attempt to framing globalization and providing alternative narratives to it. Nostalgic sets were devised across the 2010s, culminating with an eventual return of the military.