Brazil Is Prosecuting Its Coup-Plotter. America Put Ours Back in Office.

Brazil is practicing democracy. America is practicing impunity.

I met Jair Bolsonaro in September 2019 during the United Nations General Assembly in New York. At the time, I was serving as Vice President Mike Pence’s homeland security and counterterrorism advisor, and, little-known fact, also as his Latin America and United Nations advisor. (Imagine that: he actually put a Latina fluent in Spanish on this portfolio… in a White House where I was clearly not welcomed by Stephen Miller and his ilk.) Bolsonaro, for his part, had met with Donald Trump at the White House earlier that year and was still in his honeymoon phase on the world stage, selling himself as a reformer who would align Brazil more closely with the U.S. 

That same fall, Patricia Campos de Mello, one of Brazil’s leading journalists and a recipient of the International Press Freedom Award, visited the White House with a small group of fellow honorees. They met with Vice President Pence at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, just steps from the West Wing. She raised concerns about Bolsonaro’s attacks on the press in Brazil. Pence asked whether he had condemned those attacks. Her answer was no; in fact, he had encouraged them. The irony of Pence asking this, in a room full of reporters honored for their courage, wasn’t lost on me. After all, Pence was serving under a president who relentlessly attacked the media at home, even going so far as to strip CNN’s (at the time)

Jim Acosta

of his press badge.

Fast-forward six years. Today, Bolsonaro is on trial in Brazil’s Supreme Court for something even more serious: attempting to stage a coup to remain in power. And Trump is back in office, still attacking the press. Still plotting on future elections.

The charges are staggering. Prosecutors say they have evidence of a draft decree authorizing a coup, and even allegations of assassination plots against President Lula, his Vice President, and a Supreme Court justice. Bolsonaro faces up to 40 years in prison. For the first time in Brazil’s history, a former president is being tried for trying to dismantle democracy itself.

And this isn’t his first sanction. Brazil’s top electoral court has already banned Bolsonaro from running for office until 2030, citing abuse of power while in office and his baseless attacks on the country’s electronic voting system.

And here’s the part that should sound familiar to Americans: Bolsonaro thrived on attention, turned lies into political fuel, attacked the press, and tried to discredit elections before he lost them.

Donald Trump wrote from the same playbook.

Both men downplayed COVID, pushed miracle cures, and mocked science while their people died. Both vilified journalists and encouraged their followers to see the press as the enemy. Both elevated family and loyalists into government roles. Both admired authoritarian strongmen and worked to weaken the very institutions that held them accountable. And when the moment of reckoning came, both tried to overturn an election.

Bolsonaro’s January 8, 2023, assault on Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace was a mirror image of January 6, 2021. Different countries. Same authoritarian script.

This wasn’t a coincidence. For years, the U.S. right and Brazil’s far-right movement walked in lockstep.

Trump elevated Brazil to “major non-NATO ally” status. Bolsonaro and his inner circle became fixtures in MAGA world. Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair’s son, openly strategized with Steve Bannon, Jason Miller, and others in Trump’s orbit. After Bolsonaro lost his reelection, Eduardo huddled with some of the very architects of Trump’s post-2020 election denial campaign.

The parallels only grew sharper. Like Trump, Bolsonaro refused to attend his successor’s inauguration. Bolsonaro fled the country for Florida just days before Lula was sworn in as President. Trump didn’t leave the U.S., but he also refused to honor the peaceful transfer of power, skipping Biden’s inauguration and retreating to Mar-a-Lago instead. And like Trump’s followers on January 6, Bolsonaro’s supporters ransacked the seat of government in Brasília just days later.

Trump stayed quiet, but his allies didn’t. Tucker Carlson parroted Bolsonaro’s stolen-election line. Congressional Republicans said almost nothing; Speaker McCarthy and Senator McConnell never condemned the attack, never voiced support for Brazil’s democracy. Their silence said it all.

That silence continues today. As Bolsonaro faces trial for trying to topple Brazil’s democracy, the American right remains aligned with him.

This summer, Trump escalated from defending Bolsonaro in words to weaponizing U.S. foreign policy on his behalf.

• In July, Trump imposed 50% tariffs on Brazil, among the steepest the U.S. has ever levied, not due to trade disputes, but because its Supreme Court had dared to put Bolsonaro on trial.

• He revoked the visas of eight of Brazil’s eleven Supreme Court justices.

• And he personally sanctioned Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the judge overseeing Bolsonaro’s case, under the Global Magnitsky Act.

Think about that: the President of the United States is punishing a democratic ally for holding a coup-plotter accountable. That isn’t just meddling, it’s direct interference in another democracy’s judicial process.

The move has backfired inside Brazil. Polls show a majority of Brazilians disapprove of Trump’s pressure campaign. Business elites and even some conservatives who once supported Bolsonaro are turning against him, frustrated by the costs of Trump’s tariffs. Instead of strengthening Bolsonaro, Trump has weakened him.

And geopolitically, Trump is accelerating what he claims to fear most: Brazil’s tilt toward China. Beijing is already investing in Brazil’s energy, agriculture, infrastructure, and technology. By weaponizing U.S. tariffs and sanctions, Trump has pushed Latin America’s largest democracy deeper into Beijing’s orbit, eroding U.S. credibility as a reliable partner and undermining America’s influence in the hemisphere.

Why this matters

Brazil is the world’s fourth-largest democracy. If its institutions can hold a strongman leader to account, it proves that no one, no matter how powerful, is above the law. It’s a mirror for us.

After January 6, our own system faltered. Republicans failed to hold Trump accountable; only a small handful stood up, and they paid the price. Now Trump is back in the Oval Office, escaping consequences and even celebrating Ashli Babbitt, a rioter who stormed the Capitol, with military funeral honors. That’s not accountability. That’s the glorification of insurrection.

This is why we should be rooting for Brazil to succeed in holding Bolsonaro accountable for his attempted coup. Because authoritarianism is spreading. Once, America was the beacon of democracy. Now the question is whether we’ll relearn that role, or whether we’ll let Brazil show us what it looks like to defend democracy while many Americans look away.

Accountability is messy. It’s politically fraught. But it is the foundation of democracy. Today, Brazil is showing us what it looks like in practice. The question is whether we in the United States, will ever choose to do the same.

Until next time,

Olivia