Trumps of the Tropics: Brazil’s Far Right Plots Its Return

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Trumps of the Tropics: Brazil’s Far Right Plots Its Return

It is common on the Brazilian right to ridicule the idea that there was any coup attempt in the country. As proof, they point to the tragicomic nature of Jan. 8: Those people, crying and praying in Brasília and immediately imprisoned, were never going to overthrow the government, they say. But Eduardo Bolsonaro did not seem to be joking when he said, in 2018, that “all you need to shut down the Supreme Court is one corporal and one soldier.”

The day after I saw him in the studio, Eduardo spoke at the congressional inquiry into Jan. 8. The hearings had been dragging on since May 2023. Paradoxically, the inquiry arose in part out of right-wing accusations that the new government was hiding something, but as authorities dug deeper, it caused more and more problems for the former ruling family. On the agenda that day was the investigation into one of Jair Bolsonaro’s associates, who was accused of selling jewels given to Brazil by the Saudis. Eliziane Gama, a senator and the special rapporteur for the investigations into Jan. 8, sat up front, overseeing the proceedings. Soon, it was Eduardo’s turn to speak. “We have already become Venezuela,” he said, denouncing the investigations as authoritarian. He went on: “This is a one-way ticket to East Germany without stopping in Cuba. It’s the Stasi.”

Ferreira was supposed to be in the room, too. Instead, he was outside, speaking to a gaggle of teenagers who wanted to take pictures with him. This happens all the time, and he had a speech prepared. “Soon you will be heading off to university, if you choose,” he said. “And there you will find a terrible environment, unfortunately. There will be people there trying to break you down, day by day, attacking your beliefs. Staying firm in your principles will always bear fruit.”

By most accounts, it was an esoteric reactionary philosopher named Olavo de Carvalho who first forged the ideological links with U.S. right-wing political culture that became foundational for Brazil’s “new right.” After Brazil’s U.S.-backed dictatorship ended in the 1980s, widely denounced for torturing and disappearing its political opponents, few politicians called themselves “*************” or “right-wing.” Bolsonaro, who always lamented democratization and praised the military regime, was an exception, but he was largely ignored. This was the era of the “direita envergonhada,” or “embarrassed right,” that de Carvalho helped bring to an end.

De Carvalho, who was briefly a ********** and worked for a time as an astrologer, moved to the ******* States in 2005 and began posting furiously on blogs and social networks. He gained a following on Orkut, an early

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-owned social network that was popular in Brazil, and took aim at what he considered pro-leftist political correctness in his native country. Vast swaths of the Brazilian right credit de Carvalho with giving them their ideological formation.

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#Trumps #Tropics #Brazils #Plots #Return

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