Much of the world was shocked and horrified when Donald Trump won the White House in the United States. Shortly after that, Brazil voted their own version of Trump to be their president.
Yes, Jair Bolsonaro won the election and became president. Since then, his presidency has been defined by authoritarian tendencies, by policies that have done irreparable harm to the Amazon rainforest, and hurt Brazil's credibility the world over, especially when the coronavirus pandemic hit especially hard in that country, and Bolsonaro, instead of showing leadership, offered little more than mere excuses and denial.
Brazil's democracy is still quite young, as the country moved away from the dictatorship that ruled there until the 1980's. Bolsonaro has praised the dictatorship back then. And by making threats that match Trump's threats here, Bolsonaro is becoming possibly an even bigger threat to democracy in Brazil than Trump is here in the United States. He has claimed that he should easily win re-election, except for the vast corruption and widespread voter fraud in the electoral system there, even without offering solid proof to back up these allegations. He also has appealed to his base to make sure to not allow the opposition to steal the election and take power.
Sound familiar?
Well, it should. But there is a major difference. Bolsonaro has the support of much of the military, which is something that Trump did not quite have. And that makes the threat to Brazil's democracy quite possibly much more serious than the one that Trump and his MAGA crowd have posed, and still pose.
Watch this video by John Oliver, where he goes more in depth about Bolsonaro, and why he is so dangerous to Brazil and it's fragile, young democracy.
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