The undeniable hand of the United States in the anti-democratic riot in Brazil

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In Washington, there is a legion of people invested in the business of promoting democracy. In think tanks, congressional offices, human rights organizations, and even the media, an entire professional class goes to work each day, charged with the driving conviction that the values ​​that underpin the American democracy must extend to the whole world and that the American government has a major role to play in extending them.

But we have learned over the past half-decade that this project, often shrouded in hymns to American exceptionalism, is at odds with a harsher reality. Democracy in the United States is under duress, stretched both by the political gains of nationalist extremists and by the grating anachronism of some of the country’s political institutions. And rather than exporting democratic values, the United States has played its part in also fomenting illiberal and autocratic reactions elsewhere in the world, from trucker blockades in Canada to anti-vaccination campaigns in Germany.

Capital insurgencies in Brazil and the United States echo violent violations elsewhere

The Soufan Center, which monitors militant extremist threats, recently highlighted the global impact of America’s domestic radicalism. Many foreign terrorism analysts consider the United States to have become a net exporter of anti-government and anti-authority extremism, inspiring and motivating sympathizers in many countries around the world, he noted in a newsletter.

That impact was arguably visible in Brazil’s capital Braslia on Sunday, as supporters of defeated former President Jair Bolsonaro rampaged through the heart of the federal state, storming the presidential palace, the Supreme Court and the Congress. The scenes of chaos and destruction were immediately reminiscent of what happened two years earlier in the United States, when President Donald Trump’s supporters briefly ransacked the US Capitol in an attempt to thwart Congress’ certification of the electoral vote. of 2022.

What happened in Brazil, to some extent, emerged from a Trumpist playbook. For months before last year’s election, Bolsonaro questioned the legitimacy of any democratic outcome that would not have brought him victory. After losing to President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro never fully conceded defeat and skipped Lula’s nomination earlier this month. Some of his ardent supporters, radicalized online amid a jumble of social media misinformation, refused to accept Lulas’ victory, camped out in various parts of the country and clung to visions of deliverance at the hands of of an army forcing a coup d’etat.

Videos of the attack in Brazil show striking similarities to January 6

The Jan. 8 riot marked a violent coda to months of polarizing anger and reflects deep divisions within Brazilian society. But the American imprint on events is impossible to ignore. Bolsonaro and Trump were fellow travelers, for a time the western hemisphere’s preeminent ultranationalists, and their camps have become strong supporters of the others’ political project. Their cronies maintained a feedback loop of grievances and hysteria, echoing their dubious claims about voter fraud, the threat of a communist takeover and the need for intervention to stop the theft. In recent weeks, the takeover of Twitter by tech billionaire Elon Musks has brought back some far-right Brazilian influencers.

According to Andre Pagliarini, a historian of Brazil at Hampden-Sydney College, one of the things that I think sets bolsonarismo apart from previous streams of Brazilian conservatism is the way it apes the American right, particularly the right-wing culture war. online alternative associated with Trumpism. , said. The cult of guns, for example, had never figured prominently in Brazilian conservatism. This is the case now.

And there is also a political style and an agenda shared by the two movements. This includes the slap of men around Donald Trump who began to dream of a different kind of American influence, as Anne Applebaum of The Atlantics wrote. Not democratic, but autocratic. Not in favor of constitutions and the rule of law, but in favor of insurrection and chaos. Not by declarations of independence but by social media trolling campaigns.

Viktor Chagas, a professor at the Federal University of Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro, told my colleagues that the Sunday riot was a clear attempt to emulate the invasion of the US Capitol, as a reproduction of Trumpist movements and a signal symbolic of strength and transnational connections from the global far right.

How Bolsonaros’ rhetoric and then his silence fueled Brazil’s assault

But the scenes also reflect the limits of Bolsonaro’s appeal and ability. While there are suspicions about the extent to which elements of the security forces tolerated or even encouraged protester incursions, weeks of protests against Lulas’ election have moved no levers of state. The Bolsonaro folks had really studied January 6 and the conclusion they came to was that Trump failed because he was crowd-based and had no institutional support, my colleagues Tom Shannon, former US Ambassador to Brazil. For this reason, the folks at Bolsonaro worked hard to try to build that institutional support, but they failed. Which says a lot about Brazilian democracy and Brazilian institutions in a very positive way.

Unlike Trump two years ago, Bolsonaro was nowhere near the scenes of violence but in the United States, hanging out in a Florida suburb not far from Disney World. He made no speeches, urging the crowds to march through the halls of power. The next day, Bolsonaro reportedly went to hospital for abdominal pain. But in the coming weeks he will still face scrutiny for his possible role in inciting riots from afar.

His silence was terrible, Jairo Nicolau, a political scientist at the Fundao Getulio Vargas research institute, told my colleagues. It signaled to a part of his more ideological supporters that he supported them, that they were doing what their big boss could not do. His silence was the main spark that ignited the protests now unfolding.

Even as American Republicans, in addition to Democrats, have denounced the events in Brasilia, another high-profile figure has remained silent about what happened: Trump.

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