When at first you don’t overthrow…

Back in November of 2022, after Brazil’s election when Bolsonaro lost, the newspapers in America marveled and openly discussed what the United States might learn from Brazil’s electoral process. Sure, Bolsonaro made a bunch of untrue claims that he hadn’t actually lost (just like another would-be-dictator we all know), but it hadn’t led to the systemic denial of the election. In fact, an election board specifically for monitoring election outcomes dismissed a lawsuit claiming fraud and fined the plaintiff something like four million dollars.

Fast-forward to 2023, and almost two years to the day after our attempted insurrection here in the United States, Brasilia has had their own coup attempt. It turns out that the celebrations of stability and peaceful transfer of power were premature. The capital was stormed and vandalized, and the aftermath is still being felt. And, wouldn’t you know it, while all this was going on, where was Bolsonaro? Florida. We’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that.

Suffice it to say that Bolsonaro knew Trump, and took a page from his playbook. In other words, as we discuss, the United States is successfully exporting its political unrest. Presented still another way: our ugly is catching on. What will we do about that? Well, from the looks of it, not much.