Democracies Can Perish Democratically Too: Brazilian Democracy on Edge

Abstract

Living in a democratic regime does not guarantee that we live democratically. Brazil is at an existential crossroads, the magnitude of which we can only begin to imagine. This is a country where the pandemic has caused one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. This is also a country that experienced two grave attacks on democracy and the rule of law in a short period of time: the 2016 judicial— political coup against President Dilma Rousseff, and the grotesque judicial— political machinations that led to the sentencing without evidence, in 2018, of former President Lula da Silva, the most popular president in Brazilian history. This country is ruled by a president, Jair Bolsonaro, who won the election after his rival had been illegally neutralized and with the massive help of an avalanche of fake news to boot. This is a country ruled by a president who is not only blatantly incompetent to hold office, but is also a pro-fascist (a staunch supporter of the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985 and of the torturing of its democratic opponents); he is also an active accomplice in Brazil’s ongoing genocide against the indigenous populations and the Brazilian people in general.