Bolsonaro and Trump Expose the Greatest Threat to Democracy
Pedro Abramovay: Former Brazilian Minister of Justice (2010-2011), currently serves as Vice President of Programs at the Open Society Foundation.
New York – Media coverage of the trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tends to focus on the striking similarities between his case and that of former U.S. President Donald Trump. Both are far-right figures, ascended to power as “outsiders,” and governed during the COVID-19 pandemic, embracing denial of scientific facts regarding health and climate. Both had previously declared they would not accept electoral defeat and incited their supporters to storm their respective parliaments following their losses.
However, the difference today is that one sits in the defendant’s seat facing possible conviction from his country’s Supreme Court, while the other governs the United States. As The Economist concluded in a statement previously unimaginable: “The role of the democratic adult in the Western Hemisphere has – at least temporarily – shifted to the South.” Understanding how this occurred is essential to confronting the major challenges facing contemporary democracies.
Bolsonaro emerged in the political arena during the first election after the adoption of the 1988 Constitution, which restored democracy to Brazil after more than two decades of military rule. His political agenda has been characterized by authoritarian tendencies.
In the earlier stages of his career, he proclaimed that the military dictatorship in Brazil had failed because it did not kill enough leftists. He claimed that former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002, the first president to be reelected) deserved execution and promised to shut down Congress if elected to the presidency. During the impeachment vote against President Dilma Rousseff in 2016, he dedicated his vote to the colonel who had tortured her during the dictatorship. These and many other examples reveal that Bolsonaro is a product of democracy even as he spent decades attacking it.
Trump’s trajectory was different. He emerged in the 1980s as a politically controversial figure when he called for the execution of five African American and Latino teenagers wrongfully accused of rape in New York. As he fashioned himself as the “billionaire reality TV star,” he built his political brand by capitalizing on economic and cultural grievances.
Trump has never been a believer in liberal democracy and has shown particular disdain for the judiciary. In his view, wealth and power can bypass any legal obstacles—a conviction he carried with him into politics, where he seeks, in his second term, to undermine the Constitution, eliminate the Federal Reserve’s independence, manipulate the electoral system, and redefine citizenship.
Both Trump and Bolsonaro were defeated in their first attempts for reelection. But at this point, the similarities end.
The Brazilian electoral system is more robust and centralized than its American counterpart. Elections are held nationwide on a single day under the supervision of federal courts, ensuring equal access to the polls from indigenous Amazonian villages to Pampas farmers. Results are announced within hours. Bolsonaro was the first candidate in decades to challenge the integrity of this system, undermining public trust in it.
In the United States, the electoral system is fragmented, which Trump exploited to sow doubt among his supporters and pave the way for the January 6, 2021, insurrection. He also pressured officials in various states to falsify results.
However, Bolsonaro went further. Investigations revealed that he and his allies discussed a decree to disrupt the inauguration of elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—a plan that failed due to military divisions. Another plan involved the assassination of Lula, his deputy Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, which was also aborted at the last moment due to lack of military support.
Following the elections, Bolsonaro’s supporters staged sit-ins outside military barracks demanding military intervention, while government officials encouraged escalation. A week after Lula’s inauguration, they violently stormed the seats of the three powers in Brasília.
In the United States, the political landscape shifted after Trump incited his supporters to storm the Capitol. He faced criminal charges, but the most serious ones effectively fell away when the Supreme Court ruled to grant him near-absolute immunity. His victory in the 2024 elections would quash any attempts to hold him accountable.
Bolsonaro, on the other hand, has faced stronger resistance from the judiciary. The Supreme Court was a primary target during his term, but when the Attorney General—who enjoys greater autonomy compared to his American counterpart—brought lawsuits against him, it marked a turning point in Brazil’s history, long shaped by decades of impunity for coup orchestrators.
Bolsonaro is now being tried for attempting to overturn democratic rule of law—an offense clearly delineated in Brazilian law, unlike the situation in the United States. Importantly, Brazilian law criminalizes coup attempts based on the principle that their success undermines any possibility of accountability. His claim that he “only thought” about it without executing it is now under judicial scrutiny.
Trump and Bolsonaro each represent models of what is termed contemporary “competitive authoritarianism.” Both are adept at manipulating disinformation, promote anti-science and anti-rights rhetoric, and hold democratic institutions in contempt.
But Bolsonaro bears a clear mark of 20th-century authoritarianism; his ideal is the military dictatorship that ended in the 1980s. Although no country is entirely immune to the erosion of democracy, Brazil’s post-dictatorship Constitution established robust safeguards. Bolsonaro is being tried today because he could not restrain himself and wait for the slow unraveling of democratic institutions; he attempted a classic coup—and found a populace ready to reject it.
For me, as a Brazilian whose family members were imprisoned or exiled during military rule, it is reassuring to see Bolsonaro on trial, especially since no military leader has been convicted for crimes from that period. However, the greatest danger today is not military coups, but “competitive authoritarians” who feed on the gradual decay of democratic institutions. In Brazil, the United States, and elsewhere, we must halt this degeneration that enables them to rise to power.
