As former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro retreated to a luxury gated community in Florida — where he has been seen doing mundane things like grocery shopping — his marauding supporters Sunday defaced Brazil’s Congress, presidential office building and Supreme Court.
It’s impossible not to see the irony of another far-right leader who, for years, incited his base with unfounded allegations of voter fraud. He takes off, leaving the dirty work to be done by his army of blind loyalists. He then lands in the Sunshine State, home of Donald Trump, who incited the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol invasion with similar conspiracy theories, and the hotbed of America’s extreme right-wing politics at the hands of Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republicans.
There aren’t two sides to what happened in Brazil’s capital of Brasilia on Sunday — or at the U.S. Capitol in 2021. These weren’t mere expressions of an opinion or dissatisfaction with government. As Brazil’s justice minister rightly described it, these were acts of terrorism and coup-mongering.
