The Playbook: Brazil Version

The American insurrection plotters have exported their autocratic dreams.

Having practiced and nearly perfected the art of deception in the run up to, and aftermath of, the 2020 United States presidential elections, player/coach, Steve Bannon (who defied a Congressional subpoena, is under criminal indictment for that act in defiance of the rule of law, and is appealing his four-month prison term), has taken his show on the road.

Bannon taught ex-Brazilian president and perpetual autocrat, Jair Bolsonaro, the strategy: months in advance of the election, you begin to cast doubt on the process by saying that if you lose the election is tainted, rigged, and corrupt. You make it clear that elections can’t be trusted. Of course, before you do that, you denigrate the media and anyone who disagrees. That should sound familiar to you. Bannon and our own ex-president wrote the playbook for the 2020 election. Their efforts failed even as they culminated in the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, which has led to criminal charges against 978 rioters so far.

Exporting the process to Brazil was simply a matter of translating English to Portuguese.

In its advertising, Dos Equis beer promotes the “Most Interesting Man in the World.” In the US, we have in our former president, the Most Insecure Man in the World. He has been compelled by whatever bad-wiring is in his head, to tell his minions that Bolsonaro called him on the phone more than any other world leader, and, as you’d figure, The Donald had to take credit for the anti-democratic strongman’s making the presidential runoff: "So happy to have helped a great person and leader get into the difficult to achieve, with other Conservative candidates and certain difficult rules and regulations, run off for President of Brazil." Kind of a Trumpy word-salad, but you get the picture.

As Democratic representative and former federal prosecutor, Jamie Raskin, said, “Democracies of the world must act fast to make clear that there will be no support for right-wing insurrectionists storming the Brazilian Congress. Those fascists modeling themselves after Trump’s January 6th rioters must end up in the same place: prison.“

After 240+ years of exporting democracy, we find ourselves in the unprecedented position of exporting fascism, Steve Bannon style. It’s a virus that has invaded the Republican body politic. CPAC, the conservative alliance, honored what Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, called “illiberal democracy“ (a term-of-art that substitutes for the word “fascism”) by holding their annual convention in his pretend-democratic country. They doubled down by inviting him to speak here, too. FYI, Hungary is constantly at odds with the European Union for its anti-democratic stances.

A Consequential Congress Yields

After an historic run that stands as one of the most productive legislative Congresses in history, a session that occasionally even saw Republicans sign on to such major legislation as the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, gun safety legislation, the CHIPS & Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, a new Congress, replete with enough cartoonish characters to give Looney Tunes a run for their money, the bipartisan party is over.

As we saw this past week, there are about twenty “Conservative Caucus” members—the Wall Street Journal editorial board calls them the “Crank Caucus,” and I can do no better in defining this fringe, anti-democracy group—who would sell their mothers by the pound if it allowed them to stop the government from governing. It is incorrect to call them conservatives. They have nothing in common with classic conservatism, whose hallmarks are a strong defense, small government, and little business regulation. These are racist, homophobic isolationists who would prefer no government to one by and for the people. It is classic only in the sense that it is demonstrative of the Tyranny of the Minority.

Don’t believe me? Try The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed pages on for size. They are considered the Conservative Oracle, and their lead editorial on Monday was headlined: “Defense is Now a Republican Target.“ The piece goes on to express concern that the intelligence community will also be targeted, because after all, who needs foreign, or for that matter, intelligence of any kind? They find intelligence as useless as a copy of the Constitution.

Many, if not most, Republicans were upset that McCarthy sold the ranch to gain the gavel. Those who tried to block his speakership were, according to a McCarthy ally, “a minority of a minority of a minority” who are “behaving like kids with a new babysitter — how far can they push?” If you thought the food fight was over, think again. The House Rules Committee is getting a lot of push-back from the Sane Republican Caucus on the deals with the devil the Speaker-in-Waiting cut to get the gig.

Stay tuned, and pass the popcorn.

©2023 Jon Sinton