Brasil de Fato

The two main speeches at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly were delivered by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and U.S. President Donald Trump. The leaders addressed many of the same issues, but their speeches offered sharply contrasting visions of the global order.

Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaks before the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2026 (United Nations)

Sérgio Costa, a sociology professor at the Free University of Berlin, described Lula’s speech as important and forceful, not only for its defense of multilateralism, but also for the statesmanship Lula displayed in his address.

“I think Lula made this very clear: multilateralism is essential to global health, for example. Without multilateralism, we face vaccine shortages and the return of diseases that had been eradicated. Climate and the environment are multilateral issues. So is preventing wars, especially as we are living in a world experiencing a record number of conflicts. These are wars of territorial expansion, something we thought had been left behind in the 20th century, but which have returned with tremendous force,” Costa said during an interview on Conexão BdF, a program on Rádio Brasil de Fato.

Trump, by contrast, offered few surprises as he defended U.S. interests and sought to place his country at the center of the world. “These are the imperialist interests of a power that has lost ground in the world and wants to regain it,” Costa said.

The professor pointed to the document that guides U.S. national security policy, released at the end of last year. He said it explicitly lays out the goal of turning Latin America into a U.S. sphere of influence, with Brazil emerging as an obstacle to that effort.

Trump adopted a belligerent tone. He spoke of annihilating Iran, made direct threats against Cuba and offered no mea culpa regarding Venezuela, acknowledging that the primary interest had always been the oil.

“If we did not have leaders in different Latin American countries willing to hand over their wealth and national sovereignty to the United States, the strategy adopted by the U.S. would not work. It relies on elites that align themselves with this discourse of American hegemony, selling out their countries to build more power at home,” Costa said.

For Costa, one possibility for changing this situation would be for Trump to suffer a defeat in the midterm elections. That could open the way for nations to strengthen the multipolar order on the world stage.

“I believe it is possible to build multilateralism on the foundations that exist today,” said Costa. “In other words, even though these international organizations have been weakened, they have not disappeared.”

Watch Lula’s full UN Speech here.

This article was published by Brasil de Fato. You can read it in its original Portuguese, here.

As Brazil approaches high-stakes elections, Brazilian sociologist Marcelo Zero analyzes U.S. demands on Brazil and looks at how far-right presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro is a proxy for his father, Jair Bolsonaro and U.S. President Donald Trump. -PD

Flávio Bolsonaro is nothing but a proxy for his father, Jair Bolsonaro. Had he been born into a different family with a different surname, he would not even qualify as head of a street vendors’ association in one of Rio de Janeiro's favelas controlled by paramilitary militias. At the Kopenhagen chocolate store he allegedly used for money laundering while serving as Rio de Janeiro state lawmaker, he would be nothing more than a salesman. Because of his well-known intellectual, ethical and political shortcomings, this man is in no way fit to be president of Brazil.

Friendlier days: U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva meet in 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

If Flávio Bolsonaro wins Brazil's presidential election, it would mean the return to power of former President Jair Bolsonaro. He is a man convicted of attempting a coup, an admirer of dictatorships, an ally of the militias and the main person responsible for the deaths of 700,000 Brazilians during the pandemic. Essentially, it would mean re-electing the worst president in the country’s history.

Jair Bolsonaro only rose to prominence in national politics through the Lava Jato era and the wave of anti-politics, anti-Workers’ Party and anti-left sentiment that swept the country after the coup against President Dilma Rousseff. A coup that was backed by the American far right. Had that not occurred, Jair Bolsonaro's dim political shine would have remained, ad aeternum, confined to the corrupt inner workings of Congress’ lower ranks and to his dangerous ties with Rio de Janeiro’s militias. That is his real measure. The measure of a bad military man, as Brazilian Dictator Ernesto Geisel once defined it, and the tiny stature of the worst possible kind of politician.

But Jair himself, within the current political context, is merely a proxy for Trump. In other words, we have two proxies for the real candidate for power in Brazil: Donald Trump. One might call him a candidate for emperor, and his vision of that position is draconian and extremist. He is far removed from the moderation of someone like Brazilian emperor Dom Pedro II. Instead, his concept of empire seems more closely related to that of infamous figures from history like Nero or Caligula.

Revelations that recently came to light show the demands Trump made to the Brazilian government in October 2025. His goal was to negotiate an easing of the political tariffs unjustly imposed on the country at the Bolsonaro clan's suggestion. These revelations show the scope and depth of the agenda of vassalage that the aspiring emperor of Brazil intends to impose on the country.

In all, Trump made 21 demands to the Lula administration. They were promptly ignored before economic pressure forced him to lift the tariffs anyway. Today, they read like a blueprint for what we can expect if he gets his way to transform Brazil into a U.S. protectorate. Here is a brief look at 12 of those demands.

1. Brazil commits not to place or maintain any restrictions on imports of remanufactured goods.

This is simply an unbelievable demand. Brazilian regulation, in line with WTO rules, prohibits the import of remanufactured consumer goods. It only allows the import of some re-manufactured capital goods under certain conditions. It’s worth noting that about 25% of remanufactured goods by the United States go abroad, mainly to Canada and Mexico, under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). These goods include items such as auto parts, electronics and heavy machinery. Opening the Brazilian market to these cheaper U.S. remanufactured goods would obviously cause extensive damage to Brazilian industry.

2. Brazil shall eliminate tariffs on ethanol, chemical products, machinery, automotive products and high-technology goods from the United States.

This is another U.S. demand that, if met, would cause severe economic damage to Brazilian industry and to important sectors of agribusiness, such as ethanol. It should be noted that in the document that was leaked this month, the United States does not commit at any point to the principle of reciprocity. It only promises to reduce additional tariffs on Brazilian products yet to be specified.

3. The United States and Brazil agree that taxes on digital services are counterproductive to the transformative potential of digital trade, to deepening economic cooperation, to increasing competitiveness and to promoting economic growth in both economies. Brazil shall refrain from imposing taxes on digital services, or similar taxes that discriminate against U.S. companies. Brazil shall commit to recognizing the United States as a country or jurisdiction that provides adequate data protection under Brazilian law.

Brazil currently imposes taxes on so called e-commerce as well as on digital services. In the case of the latter, import taxes can reach 50%. The United States is highly competitive in exporting digital services, which account for about $700 billion of American exports. It is obviously in the interest of U.S. Big Tech companies for Brazil to open this market completely.

4. Brazil shall adhere to the principle of competitive neutrality regarding the role of its central bank, both as regulator and supervisor of payment arrangements and as operator of the domestic payment system.

This is, of course, Trump’s anti-Pix clause. Pix, Brazil’s tariff-free, government-managed electronic payment system, deeply displeases the major U.S. credit card companies and American digital payment systems, such as PayPal.

5. Brazil shall refrain from imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions, including electronically transmitted content, and shall support the multilateral adoption, immediately and without conditions, of a permanent moratorium on customs duties applicable to electronic transmissions at the World Trade Organization.

This demand moves in the same direction as demand 3, already discussed above. This time, however, Brazil is required to support specific U.S. interests at the multilateral level, at the WTO. It is a shamefully cynical demand, since the United States has practically destroyed the WTO and the multilateral rules of trade.

6. Brazil shall commit to a free and fair presidential election in 2026 and shall not arbitrarily detain, arrest or otherwise limit the participation of political dissidents in the electoral process.

This is a political demand meant to serve the interests of the Bolsonaro clan and it represents a serious affront to Brazil’s national sovereignty and its justice system. Brazil has no political dissidents. It has criminals, who were arrested for attacking the country’s democratic institutions. The Bolsonaro clan and its supporters nevertheless continue to demand that Trump define what is fair or not on our own territory.

7. Brazil shall not extraterritorially apply fines, impose asset freezes, detain, arrest or otherwise punish U.S. citizens, legal U.S. residents or U.S. companies for conduct protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

This is, again, a political demand with a clear target. It aims to shield members of the Bolsonaro coalition currently residing as fugitives of justice in the United States, who keep acting against national sovereignty while the U.S. ignores their extradition orders. As Eduardo Bolsonaro was sentenced to 4 years and 2 months in prison this June, for lobbying against national economic interests with a foreign government, it could be called the Eduardo Bolsonaro clause.

8. Brazil shall inform the United States in advance of potential asset transfers before a sale in the critical minerals and mining sector and shall provide U.S. companies the opportunity to participate in a fair bidding process before granting Brazilian regulatory approval.

This demand, along with demand number 9 which follows it, clearly aims to give the United States free access to rare earth minerals, of which Brazil holds the world’s second largest reserves. This demand also aims to block access to these strategic resources by companies from so-called countries of concern, meaning places like China and Russia. Note that under the Mercosur-EU agreement, Brazil committed to developing a technological partnership on this matter with countries from that bloc. In addition, it has already developed its own policy on critical and rare earth minerals that places appropriate emphasis on domestic processing and on their use for the development of national industry.

9. Brazil shall adopt effective measures to limit investments by foreign entities considered to be of concern in its mining sector and in other industrial sectors.

See the previous comment.

10. Brazil shall commit to providing U.S. digital service providers with adequate advance notice and the opportunity to comment on, or appeal proposed or final decisions, penalties or fines related to social media posts, as well as to developing clear rules for content removal and civil liability.

This demand reinforces the absurd idea that U.S. legal standards should prevail over Brazil’s own national laws regarding the essential regulation of social media.

11. Brazilian airlines must commit to purchasing U.S.-made commercial aircraft, including announcing their intention to buy Boeing planes.

This demand applies to both commercial and executive jets manufactured by Boeing. Trump and Bolsonaro want Brazilian airlines to buy only jets from the American company Boeing, which has been in serious crisis since the disasters involving the Boeing 737 MAX and recurring problems with its currently poor product quality control. Gol is the only Brazilian airline that currently relies primarily on Boeing aircraft. Latam prefers Airbus. Azul uses Embraer jets for domestic and Airbus international flights. Obviously, the Brazilian government cannot force private companies to purchase Boeing aircraft.

12. Brazil will align with international standards in relevant sectors to facilitate trade. It will also allow U.S. goods to enter the country without additional conformity assessment requirements, as long as those goods meet applicable U.S. or international standards, technical regulations or conformity assessment procedures.

This is yet another unreasonable demand meant to impose the technical, sanitary and phytosanitary standards prevalent in the U.S. at the expense of the rules in force in Brazil. Our country would thus have to accept certificates issued in the U.S. without subjecting American made products and goods to national, sovereign oversight. This would effectively nullify Brazil’s technical trade defenses which would incur serious danger.

The Lula government rejected these U.S. demands because they undermined national sovereignty, both politically and economically. Furthermore, the Lula administration persisted in defending national interests even after some of these outlandish demands were softened.

After all, there is no such thing as half sovereignty. Either a country is sovereign or it isn’t.

There is no doubt about it: Trump and Marco Rubio want to turn Brazil into the geopolitical target of the moment, with the eager and obsequious assistance of the Bolsonaro clan and its allies, spread across the media, other political parties and sectors of the submissive traditional oligarchies.

They want to turn Brazil into a vassal state, a kind of protectorate. They know that the country’s geopolitical submission is vital for the United States to impose the so-called Donroe Doctrine across the entire continent. Our country carries great weight in this neo-imperial strategy.

Even Brazil’s intelligence agency, ABIN, already knows that Emperor Trump is intervening in the Brazilian electoral process in order to benefit his proxies, Jair and Flávio Bolsonaro.

Is there anyone left anywhere who doesn’t doubt it?

Trump has the NSA, the CIA and the major Big Tech companies at his disposal. It is a political and communications arsenal of extreme power, already tested on numerous occasions around the world in regime-change operations.

Was the recent political shift of almost all of South America toward the right and toward geopolitical vassalage really spontaneous? Did it happen solely because of internal factors?

Did the recent crisis in our Supreme Court, so convenient for certain electoral interests, happen automatically and naturally, like mushrooms growing after the rain?

Was the decision to bring sophisticated attack drones to South America intended solely for the innocent purpose of fighting criminals?

Everyone has the right to believe whatever they want, but no one has the right, at a crucial moment like this, to be stupid or naive.

Everyone has a duty to protect Brazil, its sovereignty, its democracy and its people.

Sometimes it is not the economy, or perceptions of the economy, or poor communication, or a supposed lack of proposals.

The real problem may lie elsewhere. It’s geopolitics, stupid!

Marcelo Zero is a Brazilian sociologist.

This article was submitted directly to Panamerican Dispatch (among other news outlets), in Portuguese. It can be read in its original form here.

The 1964 coup gave us a 21-year dictatorship, harmful as every dictatorship is. It had been planned for years and first failed in 1954, when it was thwarted only by the suicide of President Getúlio Vargas. The military then took power but kept up appearances. They swore in Vice President Café Filho, who earned the job by betraying the president who had elected him. He was a president in name only, not unlike the figure the United States recently installed to run a Venezuela that has been reduced to a protectorate.

Brazilian army tanks arrive at Guanabara Palace, on April 1, 1964, during the military coup that led to the overthrow of President João Goulart. (AFP via Getty Images)

The military took control of the country in August 1954. By November 1955, they were already plotting a new coup, this one meant to block Juscelino Kubitschek from taking office. Kubitschek had won the October election. Critics claimed he had communist backing. Worse still, in their eyes, his vice president would be João Goulart, heir to Vargas and to the labor movement.

That coup fell apart. Brazilian history is full of such twists, and this one turned on the dissent of the Minister of War, Henrique Teixeira Lott. Lott led a coup of his own, a counter-coup if you like, to restore legality. Congress blessed it. On Jan. 1, 1956, Kubitschek and Goulart were sworn in at Catete Palace. History remembers the operation that blocked the coup as “The Eleventh of November.” The coup had failed, but the appetite for coups had not. Kubitschek served out his full term, but not without cost. He faced a hostile Congress, a hostile press (the same press we see today), endless impeachment attempts and two military uprisings, in Aragarças and Jacareacanga.

In 1961, Brazil saw a new cycle play out: a coup attempt, a parliamentary counter-coup, a military uprising, popular resistance and finally a parliamentary coup.

President Jânio Quadros resigned in a maneuver aimed to facilitate a military coup. The majority of the national deputies executed a counter-coup by accepting his resignation and swearing in the leader of Congress as acting president (as Vice President João Goulart was on a diplomatic visit to China). This was followed by an attempted military coup, which was vetoed by Goulart’s three Military chiefs of staff. There was a popular uprising in support of the president initiated by Rio Grande do Sul governor Leonel Brizola and finally, a parliamentary coup. In a matter of hours, Congress transformed the political system from the presidentialism, under which Goulart took power, into a kind of dysfunctional parliamentarism. Under the circumstances, however, this no longer mattered. The coup was negotiated between the military conspirators and Congress. Its real aim was to block Goulart’s inauguration. But when the popular reaction made that impossible, the goal was to reduce his powers.

The cycle that began in 1954 was still underway. One task remained: removing a president who championed basic reforms, who had mobilized the country around a national literacy campaign for adults and who, worst of all in his critics’ eyes, defended agrarian reform.

His ouster brought a dictatorship with it. Supreme Court justices were forced into retirement. Congress was shut down. Elected officials lost their mandates. Public servants were fired. The courts came under direct interference. The constitutional order itself was revoked. Kidnappings, imprisonments, torture, exile and killings followed. To this day, no one knows the full body count. This was the military coup of April 1, 1964. It had the open support of the mainstream press, the conservative forces and, of course, the United States. The U.S. stationed warships off the Brazilian coast. Washington called it Operation Brother Sam.

I revisit these familiar facts to show the engineering behind the process. Nothing here happened by accident. A careful observer should never be caught off guard.

The 1930 uprising was born of necessity: the First Republic, flawed from the start, had reached exhaustion. Brazil’s Estado Novo (New State), which ran from 1937 to 1945, followed the collapse of the 1934 constitution, much as the fall of the Weimar Republic in Germany cleared the way for Hitler’s rise in 1933. Even before Hitler, fascism had already taken hold in Europe. Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy in 1922. The continent, still reeling from World War I, then endured the Great Depression of 1929. Dictatorships spread well beyond Italy and Germany: to Hungary, Spain (first under Primo de Rivera, then Franco), Albania, Poland, Portugal, Lithuania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Latvia and Romania.

Latin America followed the same authoritarian drift. Brazil and Argentina led a list of 16 dictatorships that also included Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

That was the world on the eve of World War II. The Cold War followed and ended in 1991 with the suicide of the Soviet Union. The United States, having defeated its great rival without firing a shot, became the world’s uncontested superpower. That lasted until the rise of Eurasia under Chinese leadership restored a balance of power and opened what might be called a New Cold War.

One thing has changed, and it matters. In World War II, the United States led a world that dreamed of the freedoms that fascism was trying to smother. Even through the Cold War, Washington claimed the mantle of defender of democracy. Today, it makes no such claim. Without disguise, the United States now leads something closer to a neofascist international, radiating out from the White House. It still commands enormous economic and military power, and it uses all of it: open warfare, hybrid warfare, the threat of invasion, kidnapping, plunder and punishing tariffs. It has joined with Zionism in the genocide of Palestinians and in aggression against Iran. It has floated annexing Canada and Greenland outright and revived old claims on Cuba. In its shadow, right-wing governments are gaining ground across Europe. Neo-Nazism just won a striking victory at the polls in Germany. NATO members, joined by a long submissive Japan, are following Washington’s lead and doubling their military budgets. This, we should remember, is exactly how the world looked just before World War II.

The rise of the far right concerns Brazil directly. One of its clearest goals, nearly achieved already, is total control of South America. So far, most of that control has come through elections. Brazil and Uruguay remain the only two democracies on the continent not yet under far-right rule. Venezuela, reduced to a protectorate and stripped for its resources, will not be the last casualty. Brazil is different: its territory, its stockpiles of strategic minerals, its population and its level of development make it the last real point of resistance, the one that has to be removed. That is why Brazil’s immediate future rests, quite literally, on the next presidential election.

Today’s threat echoes the years before 1964, when Washington leaned hard on the Brazilian government. But the two moments are not identical. Back then, the labor movement was strong. Popular forces had real organization and turned out in force. The student movement was a genuine mass movement. Congress leaned progressive, so much so that the dictatorship later had to destroy and rebuild it. The armed forces had nationalist and progressive factions within their own ranks, so much so that hundreds of officers were later purged. Ordinary Brazilians defended basic reforms and democracy itself in the streets, at rallies and in marches. That resistance is precisely why the dictatorship needed a coup to take hold at all.

Today, the threat can advance through the ballot box instead. The signs are already there.

Fascism rose this way in Italy. Nazism rose this way in Germany. Democracies across our continent are eroding this way right now. In Brazil, the setback could arrive without an open break in legality, paved instead by institutions already in crisis: a judiciary that has been weakened and compromised, not immune to foreign interference, and a Congress that has grown reactionary and detached from the national interest.

We need to act now, and without hesitation.

Roberto Amaral, 86, is a journalist. He is the former President of the Socialist Party of Brazil and former Brazilian Minister of Science and Technology.

This article was translated from Portuguese and can be read in its original form at Brasil 247, here.

Edson Fachin’s unilateral decision to strip Justice Alexandre de Moraes of his role overseeing inquiry 4781 (the “fake news” investigation) is a grave attack on democracy.

The move guts the main legal tool used to resist the ongoing coup actions against the rule of law pushed by Bolsonarismo and its allies in the mainstream media.

By removing Moraes from the inquiry, Fachin hands a victory to Jair Bolsonaro and the other convicted coup plotters. That includes those convicted of plotting to assassinate President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, and Moraes himself.

Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin, during a plenary session of the court, on September 16, 2026. (Alejandro Zambrana/STF)

After seven years of conflict, the enemies of democracy have finally pulled off their most successful coup yet. They got Moraes removed from the inquiry that was investigating efforts to discredit the judiciary, threaten judges during proceedings, and sabotage the reputations of judges and courts. The path is now clear.

In defending democracy, Moraes and his wife faced sanctions from the Trump administration. Fachin should have defended his colleague. He should have protected Brazilian judicial sovereignty under attack. Instead, he chose to align himself with the reviled president of the threatening foreign power. He did the work of weakening not just Moraes, but the judiciary itself. Fachin, the institutional guardian of the Supreme Court, has become an instrument of its destruction. This is how democracies die. Fachin belongs to them, as disgraced former Lava Jato task force leader Deltan Dallagnol once said.

The inquiry wasn’t kept open for seven years out of whim or authoritarianism. It stayed open because the coup, the reason for its existence, never stopped unfolding.

Leading the inquiry gave Moraes the means to fight back against formidable forces.

The case now passes into Fachin’s hands.

The Moraes who once had the power to enforce laws defending democracy no longer exists.

What exists now is a Moraes who has been sanctioned, neutered, humiliated by Fachin. The golden dreams of fascism’s beasts, held in check until now by the historic January 8th convictions, are becoming real.

Punishing Moraes is a reward for the enemies of freedom and their allies, who have tirelessly slandered him. The inquiry is being buried. But the coup actions meant to sabotage democracy, the very reason it existed, keep showing themselves to anyone willing to look. The poison remains. Only now, there’s no antidote.

The winners are the ones who always wanted Moraes’s head. Flavio Bolsonaro sees the one banner of his campaign against President Lula gaining ground. Gone is the main barrier standing against the coup’s return.

When the author falls, his work falls with him. The rulings Moraes led now face possible annulment. With his removal, impunity for Jair Bolsonaro grows more solid.

Truth alone isn’t enough to prevail. Truth needs force behind it. It needs support.

Fachin is not the angel of balance, republican morality, and sound judgment he wants people to believe he is. He himself deserved scrutiny in the now-buried fake news inquiry. Yesterday made plain what everyone already knew: Fachin belongs to them.

Mario Vitor Santos has been a journalist for 42 years. He served as director of Folha de São Paulo’s Brasília bureau during the 1988 Constituent Assembly. He then headed Folha's newsroom at the paper's headquarters in São Paulo, before moving on to become a Knight fellow for professional journalists at Stanford University. Upon his return, he served as Folha's ombudsman for two terms, and directed Casa do Saber from 2003 to 2021. He holds a master's degree in ancient drama and society from the University of Exeter in England and a doctorate in classical literature from the University of São Paulo. He is currently an editor at Brasil 247.

This article was originally published by Brazil 247. It can be read in its original Portuguese here.

During the September 15 hearing on whether to open an investigation against Minister Alexandre de Moraes, Brazil’s Supreme Court spent a day airing dirty laundry as two groups split the court down the middle, hurling insults at each other. In the hours following the hearing, media pundits announced the death of the judiciary and complained of a supposed complete loss of credibility with society.

(Brazil's Supreme Court. Credit: Brian Mier)

These are falsehoods, regardless of whether they were made in bad faith. Beating up on institutions and portraying them as destitute always helps the right. But the Supreme Court, as Justice Flavio Dino said, “is greater than any single member who sits on it.” I would add that it is greater than the sum of its members. But the Supreme Court we have known since 1988, designated by the Constituent Assembly as guardian of the promise of a more democratic and just country enshrined in the Constitution, may be living out its final cycle. Just yesterday, President Lula promised to work toward a deep reform of the judiciary.

For nearly four decades, the Supreme Court has honored its promise and rendered enormous service to our democracy, safeguarding the Constitution and its implementation. More recently, it confronted threats of democratic rupture and setback during the Bolsonaro coalition’s failed coup attempt. Ironically, in this most recent case, its great and courageous protagonist was precisely the justice who is now at the center of the internal conflict, Alexandre de Moraes.

We must thank the Supreme Court for progress on many issues that Congress avoided legislating, including the recognition of same sex unions, the criminalization of homophobia and transphobia, permission for abortion in cases of anencephaly, stem cell research, the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use, and the prohibition of nepotism in public service. For this, too, it has faced the wrath of the legislature, accusations of overstepping its authority, the hatred of the far right and, finally, threats of impeachment against justices along with a flood of proposals aimed at reducing the court’s role.

But exhaustion with the Supreme Court’s old format has set in. For some time now, we have watched the political system created by the New Republic break down, a system born of the fight against the dictatorship and shaped by Brazil's own negotiated transition to democracy. Important milestones include the arrival of Jair Bolsonaro and the far right to government in 2018. This weakened the executive branch even as congressional power grew, continually absorbing the federal budget and presidential prerogatives. One highly symbolic moment came with the recent rejection of Jorge Messias’s nomination to the Supreme Court. It was the Senate's first rejection of a Supreme Court nomination in 132 years.

For a time, the Brazilian Supreme Court stood in its corner of Brasilia’s Three Powers Plaza as guardian of that promise. Some even attributed to it a kind of republican “moderating power.” But “perdition”, a word Justice Carmen Lucia borrowed from Clarice Lispector to describe her sadness (“I did not lose myself, but I experienced perdition”), has been creeping into the Supreme Court’s conduct for some time now.

Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016 lacked a legal basis. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court legitimized it, approving the procedure and presiding over the process in the Senate. Shortly before, Rousseff was barred from appointing Lula as a minister in her last attempt to save the mandate she had won at the ballot box. Later, the Supreme Court denied Lula habeas corpus, keeping him in prison before he was given his final sentence. The Superior Electoral Court disqualified Lula as a candidate in 2018. That move handed the presidency over to Bolsonaro. Then came the indulgences toward Operation Car Wash before the acts of contrition: the annulment of the cases against Lula and the declaration that Judge Sergio Moro had acted with bias.

As president, Bolsonaro declared war on the Supreme Court. He unleashed his violent base against it, and that base vomited its fury in the attack on January 8, 2023. Through four years of constant threats to democracy, no one can forget that it was the Supreme Court that took the bull by the horns and set limits on Bolsonaro.

But where and when did the Supreme Court lose its way? I don’t have that answer. I suspect it happened gradually. I side with those who believe Bolsonaro’s two appointments to the court fed the mill of internal division. Many may have acted, at certain moments, with political or electoral bias. But never with the shamelessness of Justice Andre Mendonça.

In fact, I find myself using that word because I was struck by Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes’s remark about Mendonça: “This man’s shamelessness is astonishing.” After yesterday’s session, coexistence there truly will not be easy. The white-glove Supreme Court sessions of old will be a thing of the past

Every crisis brings a chance for renewal. The internal conflict on the court, its members’ inability to keep it from reaching this point, and the lack of tools to handle certain situations (such as the investigation of one of its own members) may be signaling that it is time for change and reform.

It was no coincidence that, shortly after the session ended, President Lula gave an interview to TV Record. He pledged to propose a deep reform of the judiciary, not just the Supreme Court, if reelected. He pointed to several measures: setting term limits for judges, changing the way they are selected, and establishing strict rules of conduct. “People cannot serve in the judiciary while having a son practicing law, a wife practicing law, a father practicing law. In other words, there needs to be a standard for cleaning up Brazil’s judiciary within the Supreme Court itself .”

It was a jab at Alexandre de Moraes, without a doubt. But he also took one at Mendonça. “Let everything be investigated with full rigor. Let everyone’s phone records be unsealed. What Andre Mendonça kept as a state secret, releasing only what suited him, now needs to be opened to all of society, so people can see who was lying about it,” he said.

Some say Lula stands to lose more than Flavio Bolsonaro from yesterday’s uproar in the Supreme Court. But it is Flavio, not Lula, who has a $12 million gift from Daniel Vorcaro hanging over his head. Lula’s campaign needs to continually remind voters of this, and replay the audio of that conversation in which they refer to each other as “brothers”.

*Due to her role in the Liga Operaria democratic resistance group during the national student strikes of 1977, Tereza Cruvinel spent years underground in Rio’s Baixada Fluminense. As the US-backed dictatorship came to an end, she embarked on a career as a journalist, writing the Panorama Politico column on page two of Brazil’s largest daily newspaper, O Globo, for 21 years. Later, she became the founder and first director of Brazil’s national public broadcast network, EBC/TV Brasil. She currently works as a political analyst and writer for Brasil 247.

Read this article in its original Portuguese here.

There is a coup underway in Brazil. It is not a traditional coup involving tanks in the streets, nor does it resemble the bizarre invasion and destruction of the National Congress, the Supreme Federal Court, and the presidential palace by supporters of Jair Bolsonaro in January 2023.

The Brazilian flag flies in Brasilia on January 10, 2023. (CARL DE SOUZA/AFP via Getty Images)

It is, however, a highly orchestrated coup carried out through questionable, yet effective judicial means, with broad media support. Perhaps most concerning is the fact that, even if these maneuvers are fully thwarted, the harmful impact of such actions on the presidential elections in early October will have already occurred.

Here’s a recap of what’s been happening.

André Mendonça is one of the two Supreme Court justices appointed by Jair Bolsonaro. Until recently he was the official overseeing investigations into Banco Master.

Banco Master is a Brazilian financial institution that was shut down and placed into liquidation amid a huge bank fraud investigation.

The ex-president of Banco Master, Daniel Vorcaro, is currently in jail. He has long maintained strong ties with the Bolsonaro family, including financing a film about the life of the former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Last week, Mendonça lifted the classified status of the Federal Police reports about Banco Master. These reports contain messages exchanged between former banker Daniel Vorcaro and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the lead judge in the trials of those responsible for the January 2023 attack.

Mendonça also removed the head of the Federal Police, claiming he had been subjected to an illegal investigation by the agency.

These actions have triggered a crisis unprecedented in the court’s recent history. All indications suggest this goes beyond mere legal technicalities. Instead, it appears to be a well-orchestrated plan to cast suspicion on the relations of government allies. The apparent goal: to shift focus away from investigations into the proven links between Vorcaro and Flávio Bolsonaro, the current presidential candidate running against Lula.

Mendonça has attacked Alexandre de Moraes, a central figure at the Supreme Court in the fight against fake news. That fight has been a key instrument in the rise of Bolsonarism. Mendonça also removed the Federal Police chief appointed by Lula, just weeks ahead of the October elections. Together, these moves amount to weaponizing the judiciary amid the electoral landscape. They also downplay the gravity of the Bolsonaros’ shady dealings with Vorcaro.

In doing so, he boosts the perceived legitimacy of Flavio Bolsonaro’s campaign, and thus his electoral appeal.

Many legal experts believe André Mendonça’s maneuvers lack a legal basis. Instead they appear aimed at ensuring that future Supreme Court appointments go to individuals closely aligned with the far-right ideology of Bolsonarism. This will happen if Flávio Bolsonaro takes the presidency, because several Supreme Court seats are set to be filled in the coming term.

The actions currently underway in Brazil are legally spurious and part of a political coup that is underway. They aim not only to undermine the integrity of the elections (which is characteristic of anti-democratic political movements like the one led by the Bolsonaro family), weakening the institutional framework of Brazilian democracy, but also to permanently co-opt the country’s highest judicial bodies.

Tragically, recent polls suggest that these actions, even if likely to be reversed, have had a significant and probably lasting impact on the ongoing electoral process.

To understand how this came about, it is worth noting that Brazilian society has long been increasingly influenced by neoliberal logic, wherein collectivist political projects have been suppressed and replaced by the narrative of the “self-made man” and unbridled entrepreneurship.

The country’s religious landscape has significantly propelled this sociological shift. Thirty years ago, evangelicals made up less than 5% of the population. Roughly a third of Brazilians are now evangelical.

Like the Christian Right in the United States, which played a crucial role in the expansion of evangelical churches in Brazil, such denominations tend to hold a conservative worldview. Politics is seen through a prism of individual morality, exercised by applying value judgments with a fundamentalist bent, or even through the profession of faith itself.

In recent years, we have witnessed the progressive hollowing out of the public sphere and the accompanying privatization of politics. So it is hardly surprising that many voters form their judgments and engage in political action driven by individual indignation rooted in a selective moralism of us versus them.

In other words, if corruption is widespread and everyone had illicit ties to the disgraced banker, then my candidate’s crimes seem to lose their significance. And since a collective vision for the country no longer matters, the vote boils down to the candidate’s (alleged and manufactured) ideological alignment with the voter.

It is worth noting that Supreme Court Justice Mendonça is a conservative evangelical pastor whose nomination to the Supreme Court was widely hailed by the evangelical community. It would be naive to think that Mendonça acts without considering, directly or indirectly, the interests of this group.

Many have rightly warned of the risk that external actors might influence Brazil’s upcoming elections. The most obvious scenario involves pressure from the U.S. government to sway the vote or to refuse to recognize a potentially unwanted election outcome. This concern is justified, especially given recent coup-oriented actions by Brazilian actors. But we also run the risk that such external interventions might not even be necessary. After all, national elites have never hesitated to suppress democracy in Brazil, just as long as their rentier interests remain protected.

Today, at least for now, coup-mongering appears to unfold without the use of overt military violence. In other words, without tanks. Instead, it relies on manipulating the existing legal apparatus — Lawfare. Much like during Operation Car Wash, this strategy currently seems to enjoy broad support rooted in the selective moralism of the middle classes, as well as among growing segments of the working class. Both are sectors of the population that are becoming increasingly conservative.

What is at stake in the current election is the very defense of democracy. And without broad mobilization in its defense, this new form of coup-plotting might well succeed in destroying it.

Rafael R. Ioris is a professor of Latin American history at the University of Denver.

This article was originally published in Portuguese at A Terra é Redonda. You can read the original version, here.