Brazil faces its own Jan. 6 moment — and prevails
Metal security barricades are used to break through glass, allowing rioters to enter and ransack the halls of Congress. The rioters take selfies, rifle through desks, target priceless works of art, defile or destroy what they can.
For Americans, this attack on government buildings in Brazil wasn’t some random protest in a far-off land. Rather it was a horrifying echo of our own Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — and a timely reminder that democracy is a fragile thing.
Yes, the United States, once a beacon to the world, today bears the embarrassment of being a model for election denialism and insurrection. That shame won’t be exorcised until the man most responsible for fomenting both is put on trial.
The rioters who stormed Brazil’s Congress, its presidential palace, and the Supreme Court building Sunday in the capital of Brasilia, supporters of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, had learned their lessons well. The pattern is now a familiar one. First comes the election denial, led by Bolsonaro himself — insisting without any legal basis that the results were rigged, that newly inaugurated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva could not possibly have won.
By Lula’s Jan. 1 inauguration a social media storm was already rallying Bolsonaro’s supporters — and anyone in need of a free meal — to gather for the “festa” in the capital.
Followers, many bused to the capital over the weekend, some camped out there since the election, demanded a military coup, smashing what they could to make their point. It is no accident that the Supreme Court building, its justices a special target of Bolsonaro himself, became a special target of the rioters.
As for Bolsonaro, well, he skipped the traditional inaugural hand over of the presidential sash to Lula, leaving instead for Florida, where he has taken up residence in a gated community in the Orlando area. He didn’t come just for the weather but likely is mindful that his presidential immunity would lapse on inauguration day, leaving him open to the corruption charges that have long dogged his administration.
Now the good news for Brazil is that its Congress was not in session at the time, the president was in Sao Paulo and didn’t return to the presidential palace until after order was restored in the capital, and no critical business was being transacted at the time of the riots.
Since then the Bolsonaro-inspired encampments have been dismantled, and some 1,200 protesters have been detained. Brazil’s justice minister, Flávio Dino, said in a broadcast address that authorities had identified about 40 buses that brought rioters to Brasilia (military police put the number of buses at 100) and that whoever funded those trips would be tracked down and held responsible.
Lula has accused the local police of “incompetence or bad faith” at a news conference, and the federal district governor has fired Brasilia’s head of public security, Anderson Torres, who is reportedly also in the United States.
A justice of Brazil’s highest court suspended Brasilia’s governor, a Bolsonaro supporter,
Yes, the United States, once a beacon to the world, today bears the embarrassment of being a model for election denialism and insurrection.
for 90 days, blaming him for both the security breaches and for allowing the encampments to linger and grow for more than two months.
President Biden has stood by Lula since his election and on Monday issued a joint statement with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada condemning Sunday’s “attacks on Brazil’s democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power,” adding, “We stand with Brazil as it safeguards its democratic institutions.”
But the best safeguard of any democracy is the swift restoration of order and the equally swift and sure prosecution of those who would trample a nation’s constitution into the ground in order to cling to power and defeat the will of voters.
So, yes, Lula and his new government have their work cut out for them in the days ahead. But they are not alone. The United States must continue to be both a good neighbor and a good role model. Those found responsible for this assault on Brazil’s democracy should not be able to find permanent safe haven in this country.
And those complicit in the Jan. 6 insurrection, including the man at its center, Donald Trump himself, must stand trial so that the world can know there is a price to be paid for attempting to destroy democracy and thwart the rule of law.