Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed the country’s capitol building in a scene reminiscent of the January 6 riots on Sunday. Inspired by El Mito’s claims of a rigged and stolen election, thousands of his most fanatical followers overwhelmed security forces at the National Congress, Supreme Court, and Presidential Palace, serving as pawns in Bolsonaro’s vile attempts to cling to power.
This time, however, unlike January 6, 2021, where there was never any real risk of Trump’s poorly conceived efforts succeeding, there’s a chance this attempted insurrection could inflict real damage. Brazil is a fledgling democracy, having only emerged from a military dictatorship in the 1980s, and its brittle democratic institutions are much more likely to buckle under this much stress. As of late Sunday, Brazil’s security forces had regained control, while Brazil’s president vowed prosecution.
Instances like these exemplify why American conservatives ought to be extremely wary of Bolsonaro. He’s a demagogue who’s met with the socialist Peruvian president who recently tried to pull off a coup of his own and allied with some of our biggest adversaries. Newly elected leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is atrocious in his own right. But at least Lula doesn’t threaten liberal democracy in the same way.
PHOTOS: Bolsonaro Supporters Protest
Somehow, lowercase-L liberalism has earned a bad name among some on the right as of late, but the reasons it has fallen out of favor are shoddy. Liberalism, after all, at the most basic level, is the ideological guarantor of one’s liberty to pursue a virtuous life. It is not in any way incompatible with the conservative ethos. It is an essential component of it.
Admittedly, liberalism is no panacea for all societal ills. And you can’t suddenly impose free and fair elections, due process, and the rule of law on places with no history of these democratic features or political culture able to sustain them. But in Brazil, which had shown itself capable of maintaining democracy, the willingness to undermine the peaceful transfer of power should be seen as a non-starter to those on the right who still take first principles seriously.