Valerie Wirtschafter and Ted Piccone
As thousands of protesters descended on the three main houses of political power in Brasília on Sunday afternoon, the parallels between the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the events unfolding in Brazil’s capital were undeniable and widely discussed in the media. In many ways these comparisons were also entirely predictable: Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had followed former U.S. President Donald Trump’s playbook throughout much of his tenure in office. He rose to prominence as a pugnacious right-wing populist, did not shy away from embracing authoritarianism, spent his presidency lamenting “fake news,” and made repeated and baseless claims of fraud designed to undermine the integrity of Brazil’s elections. Both countries also experienced steady declines in rule of law performance during their respective tenures.
Anti-democratic sentiment boils over in Brazil (brookings.edu)
