It Can Happen Here—and Everywhere: Democracy Is in Global Retreat

It’s not just the United States that has turned to right-wing authoritarianism to solve all its problems and brutalize the vulnerable.

According to many political theorists, Brazil did everything right after the corrupt and unpopular Jair Bolsonaro was voted out of office in October 2022. He attempted a January 6–like coup after his opponent was sworn in, which included plans to kill incoming President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. It failed, and Bolsonaro was convicted of multiple felonies and sentenced to 27 years in prison in 2025—effectively a life sentence for a 70-year-old man.

Then, last week, Brazil basically voted Lula out of office in favor of Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio Bolsonaro. Flávio promises to free his father, remove all the current Supreme Court justices and replace them with his own, and generally carry on the brutal and corrupt policies of his father.  There will be a runoff October 25, but Bolsonaro is widely expected to win it against his 80-year-old opponent.

In short, Brazilians, just like voters in the United States, went into an election knowing full well what they were getting and chose sadopopulism (i.e., an appeal to voters that a candidate will not so much help them as hurt the people they hate) over democracy.

To most external observers, the right-wing demagogue looks like a buffoon selling magical thinking. He claims that he alone can solve everything with austerity, mass incarceration, centering society around conservative religion, and eliminating transgender people from public life. Somehow, people lose sight of the fact that they’re also voting for a justice system that shields the president’s supporters from any legal accountability, no matter what they do, while weaponizing said system against his political opponents.

The supporters of the autocrat ignore these things for a variety of reasons. Some assume that, although Trump is an incompetent idiot, their Trumpist leader will do much better despite embracing the same sorts of policies. Others don’t believe the new leader will be corrupt. Worse yet, many accept the........

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