Brazil and the United States look at each other in the same mirror since the respective presidencies of Donald Trump (2016-20) and Jair Bolsonaro (2018-22). But this month it would be possible to change the name of the country in the media reports without changing the narrative.
Justice in both countries is investigating their two former presidents and the respective assaults on democratic institutions. From Trumpism on January 6, 2021, and from Bolsonarism on January 8, 2023.
Many supporters of the center-left governments of Joe Biden and Luis Inacio Lula da Silva demand devastating measures against Trump and Bolsonaro. But, with an ultraconservative and populist movement strongly mobilized in both countries, a legal offensive is still risky.
In the Brazilian case, – where a police investigation has provided new evidence this week to the accusations against Bolsonaro – there is another risk: the reaction of the military.
The military turned a blind eye during the assault in Brasilia a year ago and grudgingly respected Lula’s electoral victory. According to conversations recorded and published in recent days, the Navy’s high command directly supported a coup d’état.
“Without a doubt there was a coup attempt in Brazil; now we have the evidence although the military was and remains divided,” says Antonio Ramallo, a specialist in the Brazilian armed forces at the University of Brasilia.
The military was not involved in the Trumpist protests of January 2021. But the similarities between the recent history of Brazil and the United States. They powerfully attract attention. And they are not coincidental.
There is a close relationship between the new radical right movements in Brazil, the United States and other American countries, and this symbiosis is reinforced on social networks.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of the former president, has coordinated strategies with the brains of Trumpism. He was in the White House taking notes on January 6, 2021 when Trump encouraged his followers to demonstrate to prevent congressional approval of the victory three months earlier. The narrative of fraud and popular insurrection invented by Trumpism served as a script for Bolsonaro when he – as had happened with the US president – lost support during the pandemic.
For his part, Bolsonaro helped Trump, from the Brazilian presidency, design his strategy to regain power. New Trumpist media outlets like Gettr – created by Trump advisor Jason Miller – grew faster in Brazil than in the US.
The common denominator: a growing distrust of the elites in power. In both countries, populist right-wing gurus such as Steve Bannon and the eccentric Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho – who died in 2022 – sowed unfounded doubts regarding the legitimacy of the elections.
The worrying thing is what may happen after the presidential elections in the US in November of this year. “When Trump returns – which seems likely – the momentum (of the coup) will be resumed in Brazil,” Ramallo added in a telephone interview.
Military participation was absent in the Trumpist assault on the Capitol. But, otherwise, the attempt to destabilize the democratic process in Brazil followed to the letter the script already rehearsed by Trump before and after the November 2020 presidential elections through allegations of fraud and direct action.
The US Supreme Court has been more careful than its Brazilian counterpart, and last week distanced itself from other lower-ranking courts in favor of excluding Trump from the electoral lists.
In Brazil, on the other hand, the electoral court, under the command of the powerful judge, Alexandre de Moraes, has already disqualified Bolsonaro from participating in the elections until 2030 for inciting “distrust and insecurity” regarding the 2022 elections.
This week, Bolsonaro’s passport was revoked after a series of indications were discovered – provided to the justice system by former presidential military advisor Mauro Cid – that Bolsonaro participated in the coup plot before Lula took office.
According to the report written by Moraes himself based on recordings of statements by politicians close to the former president and high military commanders, the assault on the headquarters of the three powers in Brasilia on January 9, 2023, would have been the moment for action. military against Moraes – who would have arrested – and Lula.
When push came to shove, no soldier took his troops out into the streets. The top officials of the army and air forces refused to participate unlike their counterparts in the Navy. “It is not a trivial matter at all; there was at least institutional complacency favorable to a coup,” said political analyst Lucio Renno in Brasilia.
Everything indicates that Moraes will advance the indictment of Bolsonaro and other conspirators such as former military ministers Augusto Heleno and Walter Braga Netto.
But the legal offensive in defense of democracy carries risks at a time of enormous distrust regarding the system of exercising political power in both the US and Brazil.
Trump is the most popular candidate ahead of the presidential elections in November with an 11-point lead over Biden in the latest polls. “Even if prosecutors succeed in convicting Trump, before or after the election, the costs to the legal and political systems will be high,” Jack Goldsmith wrote in the New York Times last year.
In Brazil, Lula and Bolsonaro are almost tied in the polls. Bolsonaro social networks are boiling. “Patriots! Are those of us who believe in God, country, family and freedom going to stand with our arms crossed?” he asks in a video released this week.
“I am a victim of persecution,” Bolsonaro lamented last week. Trump does the same and denounces a political operation disguised as justice. It is a highly dangerous spiral for democracies in both countries.
Lula is aware of the risk of politicizing justice. He himself was the victim of a judicial investigation by judge and current senator Sergio Moro, who was Bolsonaro’s Minister of Justice.
The judicialization of politics can also generate dangers for freedom of expression, according to journalists in the US and Brazil. The accusation against the assault on the Capitol in January 2021 “could be used against left-wing protest movements in areas of climate change,” warns Lee Fang, former reporter for The Intercept.
Glenn Greenwald, an American Pulitzer Prize winner and another former member of The Intercept who lives in Rio en Janeiro, has attacked Moraes and fears that the legal campaigns are giving credibility to the radical right. “I have no doubt that Donald Trump is stronger now because of the criminal prosecution that was supported by the Democrats,” Greenwald said in an interview last year on the UOL channel. “If there is a perception that Bolsonaro is being persecuted for political purposes, he himself can emerge stronger.”
