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The Coups Are Back
Brazil was not an anomaly.
After watching the riot/attempted coup in Brazil on January 8th, many analysts pointed to the US Jan. 6th insurrection as the model Bolsonaro supporters had followed when planning their takeover of Congress.
There are a lot of similarities, for sure. A horde of far-right “patriots” wrapped in flags, radicalized with internet conspiracy theories about non-existent voter fraud, trying to take over the government and bring their president back.
Because, you know, who you decide is the president always needs to be president. Otherwise, it’s not acceptable.
While Bolsonaro seems to be following the Trump playbook to a T, the difference was, of course, that Bolsonaro was no longer in power, unlike Trump.
There seems to have been no grand plan to keep him in power by means of the insurrection, as Trump had with his VP Pence.
But what a lot of commenters are missing is that this current period of instability in Latin America began before the January 6th insurrection. In Argentina, the day democratic institutions were first seriously attacked was December 2017.
A War for Congress
Congress was in session, but a war had broken out outside.
