SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) The history of the bizarre political events of the past few weeks in the US might best be avoided here by understanding the dangers facing the future of democracy there and elsewhere throughout the world. Perhaps this understanding can provide some useful lessons for Brazilians, if it is not too late.
Donald Trump richly deserved to be impeached and lose his presidency as a result of his use of his office to extort the Ukraine, a US ally fighting against Russian incursion on their territory, to release already authorized and urgently needed military aid in return for the Ukraine starting an investigation of Joe Biden, his probable adversary in the coming 2020 presidential election.
Trump escaped conviction and removal from office after an impeachment ‘trial’ in the Senate in which the Republican majority ignored the overwhelming evidence, voted against having any new witnesses or documents and acquitted the president. The trial was nothing more than a scripted reality show with less suspense than ‘Ultimate Beastmaster’ or ‘Big Brother Brazil’.
It was followed by Trump’s ‘State of the Union’ address, full of self-serving bravado and made-for-TV gimmicks like the surprise uniting of a soldier with his family and the awarding of a scholarship to a young African-American girl, a demonstration of pure popular entertainment, one of the few things Trump does exceedingly well. “Pro-wrestling theatrics” intoned the Russian website, ‘RT’.
In ancient Rome it would have been ‘bread and circuses’. Writing in ‘Huff Post’, William Astore said: “… the Roman use of bread and circuses — as a way to kill compassion to ensure the brutalization of Roman civilians and thus their compliance (or at least their complacency) vis-à-vis Imperial expansion and domestic policing — is powerful and sobering.”
Sound familiar?
Like Trump, Jair Bolsonaro displays all the signs of a would-be dictator. Little by little, he has pushed anti-democratic change in the name of democracy. Like Trump, while giving lip service to the protection of the environment, he has used his best efforts to defile it.
Just this past Wednesday, February 5th, he said that one day he hopes to restrain environmentalists in the Amazon region so that they will stop disturbing him. Like Trump, he is an advocate of violence against his enemies. Like Trump, he wants to collar or close independent media.
Just as Trump conjures up racist and anti-emigrant sentiment with visions of lawlessness, aware and fearful of the unrest throughout Latin America and the danger this would have to his presidency if it spreads to Brazil, the president sees military strength as his best protection.
Like Trump, Bolsonaro is both nativist and transactional. Trump has said that he could murder someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue without any penalty and believes ‘L’état, c’est moi’. Bolsonaro doesn`t seem to care at all about the state or where it is headed. The restitution of the infamous AI5 (Institutional Act Number Five) which allowed for the closing down of the Congress, the suspension of constitutional rights guarantees, other anti-democratic policies and all power to the president, is high on his agenda.
History has a strange way of repeating itself and we cannot study her lessons too carefully.
The biggest lesson is that authoritarian regimes will almost always work to strengthen their power and control. Their modern versions of bread and circuses intended to mollify the populace who keep them in power, have many different faces. But the corrupt intent of keeping power and all its trappings for the rich is the same. It hasn’t changed since the beginning of time. History teaches that it always ends badly.
Bolsonaro and Trump, both deeply flawed characters, are moving Brazil and the US away from their imperfect democracies. Cheered on by their cult-like supporters, they live in their own ‘alternate realities’ oblivious to their lack of compassion or institutional obligations as they grab more power and become more and more self-absorbed.
It is an open question whether the existing Brazilian and US institutions, the legislatures and judiciaries, are strong enough to successfully push back against the rising tide of authoritarianism.
Writing about the future of democracy in the US, the ‘New Yorker’ opined:
“If the Trump era has proved anything, it is that American democracy, which has never been without profound flaws, cannot be taken for granted. And yet institutions, movements, thinkers, and citizens—countless citizens, of all kinds—have shown their determination to preserve what is vital and necessary to a liberal-democratic society.“
Are there enough citizens in Brazil and the US to champion and protect these increasingly fragile democracies? Can we learn from history or will we mindlessly repeat it?