It is not yet known how Trump’s war against American democracy will end. Will you be able to destroy her or be defeated in her authoritarian intent?
Anyway, what has done enough to shake the explanations that political scientists have for true. One of them prays that the democratic system would be unshakable in countries with per capita income above a certain level. Another consensus establishes that time would play in favor of the regime’s stability by allowing the political institutions to guarantee them or to disseminate the values and attitudes with them compatible. Another consensus also argues that democratic models with sufficient contrast rules would facilitate opposition to authoritarian attacks by blocking the concentration of decision -making power in the presidency.
The successful Brazilian experience of resisting Bolsonaro, contrasting with what happens in the United States, begins to feed controversy about what actually works to contain far-right populists. From this fertile debate is the column of colleague political scientist Marcus André Melo, published in this space last Monday, 09/22. I take the cue to give their opinion.
It is a fact that, in Brazil, the political institutions, the press and the organized society have crashed the scammer plot headed by the former president. It is impossible, however, to disregard that the script here is different from those traded in the past by authoritarian populist success and now strictly fulfilled by Donald Trump.
In Venezuela, Russia, and in Hungary, for example, aspiring tyrannos tried to erode the institutions of democracy by controlling the judiciary; by changing electoral rules in order to guarantee them control of the executive and obtain a majority in the legislature; for the progressive curtailment of the media and autonomous organizations of civil society – all that is underway today in the United States.
Another was Bolsonaro’s strategy: he bet his tokens in a coup backed by the weapons. He ran threatened to; He was sanded by what was going on in Congress, except to prevent him from prospering an impeachment process; He insulted the press, human rights advocates, the Democrats in general. But it was not far beyond the offensive chatter. Perhaps because he was certain of the support of the Armed Forces – that he called “my army” – and for which he multiplied benefits and lavished adduulation.
The strategy of the coup failed, and the trial that punished the conspirators was another demonstration of institutional health of Brazilian democracy. If even a shallow intellectual capacity like Bolsonaro is able to learn from their mistakes, the opportunity to experience the corrosion strategy adopted by far-right populists to destroy the democratic system should be forbidden.
PS: Lula’s speech on the UN would be perfect if he had mentioned, besides the defendant, hungry, or murdered by the army, more than 100 hostages than alive or dead, follow in Gaza.
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