Autocrats north and south

Imagine the scenario. A controversial, authoritarian, right-wing president is narrowly defeated when seeking re-election. He refuses to accept defeat, claiming the vote was rigged, and makes veiled threats of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Provoked by his claims, masses of his supporters riot in the national capital and storm government buildings.

But the response of law enforcement is swift and effective, and the former president quickly loses support. Many of his political allies rally to the new regime, and his hard-core supporters are seen to be a relatively small group. A court disqualifies him from politics until 2030; a variety of criminal charges are pending. Even his own party largely ignores him. The country moves on.

To readers in the United States this may sound like a sort of utopian fantasy. But it’s the story of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro: defeated last year by leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and since reduced, if not quite to irrelevance, then to a much less omnipresent role than his northern counterpart, Donald Trump. A recent report in El País quotes political analysts saying that he has “little to no influence as a potential opposition leader” and that he “seems to be on his way toward an inevitable end of his career.”

Why the difference? A big factor, which I’ve pointed to before, is the electoral college in the US (Jamelle Bouie just last week reminded us of its pernicious role). Because its archaic procedures drag out the timetable so much, there was a gap of two months between election day and the official certification of the winner – time that Trump could use to spin his fantasies. But there was nothing comparable in Brazil: it was a simple (two-round) ballot, and even though it was close the result was clear on the night.

So the insurrection that tried to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory couldn’t happen in Brazil. Instead, Bolsonaro’s supporters rioted after Lula had been sworn in, occupying the government district in Brasilia and showing their disdain for democracy, but to little practical effect. Law enforcement was initially slow to respond, but since Lula was already in office he was able to quickly turn that around, and his position was seen to be strengthened as a result.

There are various other cultural differences between the US and Brazil that one could point to. But one important thing to mention is the party system – specifically, the entrenched two-party system in the US, which Brazil (and most other countries) lack.

Bolosonaro won the presidency by taking over a minor party, turning it into his personal vehicle and then competing against the more established parties. That wasn’t an option for Trump; he instead fought an extended campaign to win endorsement from one of the two major parties and gradually bend it to his will. His long-term success in that project is still not guaranteed, but it has been complete enough to make him the centre of attention and the front-runner to be its candidate again next year.

In Brazil, the non-Bolsonaro parties on the right and centre-right are still there; they supported him for re-election, but they have no personal attachment to him. In the US, however, the non-Trumpers have nowhere to go. Getting a third party off the ground is all but impossible, and even if they were to succeed it would risk taking votes from Biden and helping Trump. Unless they’re willing to side with the Democrats, they have no alternative to fighting (badly, so far) with Trump for control of the Republican Party.

So while there’s still a reckoning to be made for their past complicity with Bolsonaro, it’s much easier for Brazil’s right-of-centre as a whole to move on. As Deborah Barros Leal Farias explained just a few days after the 8 January riot:

The challenge now in Brazil is to recreate the country’s political centre-right, which essentially evaporated in the last two elections, engulfed under Bolsonaro’s clout with the far-right. A centre-right that defends democratic values wouldn’t eliminate far-right radicals, but it would hopefully help in making them a fringe group.