Brazil bans Bolsonaro from future ballot while Trump goes unpunished two and half years after Jan 6

Brazil shows us how to protect a democracy

Both Brazil and the United States had right wing figures as Presidents. Both these leaders publicly spewed lies that the upcoming election they were seeking re-election in was “rigged,” thus, intentionally undermining confidence in their respective nation’s democracy.

In both nations, these leaders lost re-election yet refused to concede the loss or appear at the swearing in of the person who defeated them. And in both Brazil and the United States, supporters of these two defeated candidates stormed their nation’s respective capitols to overturn the elections.

But that is where the similarities end. In Brazil, authorities swiftly moved to criminally investigate and punish Brazil’s former leader, Jair Bolsonaro, while in the United States Donald Trump—who actually did far worse than Bolsonaro—has not faced even one charge arising from his attempted coup that took place more two and a half years ago.

We saw the latest example of Brazil vigilantly protecting their democracy on Friday when the nation’s top election court ruled that given Bolsonaro’s efforts to undermine the nation’s democracy, he was ineligible to run for any office--including president--until 2030 at the earliest. This ruling importantly came just six months after Bolsonaro left office—well before the next presidential election in 2026.

The court’s focus in reaching this decision was a July 18, 2022, meeting where Bolsonaro as President used government staffers, the state television channel and the presidential palace in Brasilia to tell foreign ambassadors that the country’s electronic voting system was rigged. Of course, he failed to present any credible evidence in support of this allegation.

Alarmingly, at the meeting Bolsonaro suggested that the way to ensure safe elections was through greater involvement of Brazil’s military. (Bolsonaro is a former army officer who had praised the military dictatorship that governed Brazil from 1964 to 1985.) As the NY Times reported at the time, “Those diplomats worried that Mr. Bolsonaro was laying the groundwork for an attempt to dispute the ballot results if he lost.”

They were right. After Bolsonaro lost the election, he refused to concede. Instead, he claimed the election was illegitimate because voting machines had allegedly malfunctioned and any votes cast through them should be annulled. What was the basis of his claim? A company hired by Bolsonaro’s own political party that had conducted an “investigation,” and which also conveniently concluded that removing those “illegal” votes would hand Bolsonaro victory.

Bolsonaro’s repeated lies that the election was corrupt and stolen caused his supporters to set up encampments outside of military installations which experts noted “were a call for the Brazilian armed forces to take power and restore Bolsonaro.” Brazil also saw riots and even a bomb plot by one of his supporters leading up to the January 1, 2023 swearing in of the president-elect, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Just two days before Lula was to be sworn in, Bolsonaro left the nation--for Florida of all places. Bolsonaro thereby intentionally broke Brazil's democratic tradition of the outgoing leader attending the swearing of the incoming president and publicly handing over the presidential sash at the inauguration. Bolsonaro—like Trump—has nothing but contempt for democratic institutions.  

A week after Lula was sworn—and taking a page from MAGA’s Jan 6 attack--Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Congress, the presidential palace and Supreme Court in the capital of Brasília. They again called for the military to take over Brazil's government in an effort to return their beloved Bolsonaro to power.

However, in Brazil—as opposed to the United States after Jan 6--authorities moved swiftly to hold those involved in the attack accountable. Within 24 hours, Brazil’s authorities had arrested an estimated 1,500 people. (In contrast, in the day after the Jan 6 attack only 83 people were arrested.  Since then, though, more than 1.000 have been arrested.)

And just five days after that attack, on January 13, 2023, Brazil’s Supreme Court approved a request from federal prosecutors to investigate Bolsonaro for his role in inciting into the Jan 8 attack.  The headlines generated from the announcement that Bolsonaro was being criminally investigated made it clear to all that no one is above the law and that guarding their nation’s democracy is paramount.

What a contrast to what we’ve seen with Trump. His actions undermining the 2020 election were unlike anything our nation has ever seen, from his fraudulent elector scheme to pressuring officials in his DOJ to declare the election fraudulent to pressuring his then Vice President Mike Pence to prevent Congress from certifying the President Biden’s election win. All of this and more was documented by the Jan 6 committee based on sworn testimony.

And that leads us to the Jan 6 attack itself the Jan 6 committee summed it up so well with this line in their report: “The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

Yet here we are more than two and half years later since Jan 6 and Trump has not faced even on criminal charge for his attempted coup. True, Special Counsel Jack Smith—based on reporting—is robustly investigating Trump and it’s very plausible that Trump could be charged with some Jan 6 related charges in the future.

But the reality is DOJ should’ve moved far more quickly—just as Brazil did. Instead, as we learned last month from detailed reporting by The Washington Post, federal prosecutors—and the FBI which is under DOJ’s umbrella- waited more than a year after Jan 6 before they “embarked on a formal probe of actions directed from the White House to try to steal the election.” As the Post noted, “Even then, the FBI stopped short of identifying the former president as a focus of that investigation.”

One passage from The Post’s article really makes my blood boil: “Inside Justice, however, some lawyers have complained that the attorney general’s determination to steer clear of any claims of political motive has chilled efforts to investigate the former president. “You couldn’t use the T word,” said one former Justice official briefed on prosecutors’ discussions.”  

Even if Trump is charged now for Jan 6 crimes, what is the message sent? If you attempt a coup and incite the first attack on our Capitol since the war of 1812, you can walk free for more than two and half years before charges will even be filed?! How is that vigilantly safeguarding our Republic?!

And even if Trump is charged in the next month or two for his attempted coup, we are so far into the 2024 presidential election cycle that it’s unlikely Trump will face trial before the election. He is now in the position to be the 2024 GOP presidential nominee and if he wins the presidency—which is possible— he would stop the DOJ investigation and/or attempt a self-pardon.

In Brazil, they understand that democracy is fragile and can be lost. After all, that happened in 1964 when a military coup took place and the nation lived under a military dictatorship for more than two decades.  In the United States there appears to be a sense by some—including leaders in DOJ—that our democracy will never end.  Tragically, that is not the case. Democracies do and have failed if not dutifully protected.

The undisputed reality is that the failure to prosecute Trump swiftly after Jan 6 has enabled the fascist movement MAGA to grow stronger. As a result, our Republic is more at risk today than ever before in our lifetimes. That means it is on us to defeat fascism come November 2024. We are our nation’s last, best hope.

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