Supporters of Brazilian former President Jair Bolsonaro invade Planalto Presidential Palace while clashing with security forces in Brasilia on January 8, 2023.Sergio Lima/Getty
On January 8, 2023, a week after Brazil’s former president (turned president again) Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office following the closest presidential election since the end of the country’s over 20-year military dictatorship—begun in 1964 by a coup partially supported by the United States—a mob of supporters of defeated far-right President Jair Bolsonaro stormed, and vandalized, the center of the nation’s main constitutional powers.
At the time, Bolsonaro was in Orlando, Florida. He was not present as those loyal to his cause descended upon the capital’s Three Powers square ready to ransack the buildings of Congress, presidential offices, and the Supreme Court in an open assault on Brazil’s 40-year-old democracy. Dressed in the yellow, green, and blue shades of the national flag—an embattled symbol that had, over the previous four years, come to signify regression for some and pride for others—the insurrectionists shouted “God, nation, family and, freedom.”
Some called for military intervention. They hoped members of the armed forces aligned with Bolsonaro, an avowed apologist for the dictatorship, would “restore the order.” If not, rioters were ready to take the matter into their own hands. Here they were to do just that. And not unlike their American counterparts, those who invaded and defaced the public buildings proudly filmed........