It was hard to avoid a sense of déjà vu when supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president, stormed major federal institutions in the capital Brasília in early January. Insisting that Brazil’s 2022 presidential election was “stolen,” the demonstrators ransacked the Congress, the presidential palace, and other key government buildings. Observers swiftly noted similarities to scenes that played out two years before in Washington, when right-wing mobs attacked the U.S. Capitol in an effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden.
There was nothing accidental about the similarities between these two attacks on liberal democracy. Right-wing populists in multiple countries, including in Brazil, have drawn inspiration from Trump’s brazen political manner. But the transnational connections among right-wing populist movements extend beyond the circulation of styles and ideas. Bolsonaro, his lieutenants, and many of his followers maintain concrete ties with right-wing leaders and organizations in the United States. Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement is, at least so far, one of the most politically consequential far-right success stories—if only by virtue of its four-year control over the executive branch of the world’s most powerful country. Recent years have also seen the rising influence of right-wing populists in most Western democracies—including, for example, the ascendance of Bolsonaro in Brazil, the victory of Brexit in the United Kingdom, the growing strength of extremist anti-immigrant parties in France and Germany, and the recent rise to power of far-right parties and leaders in Italy and Sweden.
