This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Just in case you think that, since January 6, 2021, the trials and tribulations of the American democratic system have been unique or even (to use an all-American word) exceptional, think again. In a recent New York Times column, Max Fisher focused on New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's remarkable announcement of her decision to vacate her post well before the next election. ("I'm leaving, because with such a privileged role comes responsibility " the responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It's that simple.") There, the transition proved remarkably straightforward and swift, her party voting in a new prime minister almost instantly. As Fisher points out, while Ardern's comments were out of the ordinary, among parliamentary democracies globally, this was not otherwise an atypical event. The most stable democracies have, in fact, proved to be parliamentary ones of the sort Ardern has led for the last five-and-a-half years, "where executive power is generated by legislative majorities and depends on such majorities for survival."
On the other hand, presidential democracies of the American sort have had a far more daunting tendency to collapse in coups or other horrors, especially during the transition period between presidencies. Fisher adds, "Donald J. Trump's efforts to hold onto power after losing the 2020 presidential election may have been shocking and unprecedented for the United States, but they were well in line with the sorts of crises that play out in presidential systems worldwide."
As if to make that point all too graphically, the world recently watched Brazilians play out their very own version of January 6th, once again in front of the cameras. In both cases, the shaky changeovers were unnervingly insurrectionary in nature, but as TomDispatch regular Karen Greenberg, author of Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump, suggests today, each of those events had its distinct qualities and striking differences.
And of the two, the American version may have come even closer than the Brazilian one to collapsing a system of government as we know it. (Thank you, Donald!) Given the extremity of the Trumpublicans who only recently (and barely) took over the House of Representatives, don't for a second think we're done with this yet. If you don't believe me, just ask George Santos or Marjorie Taylor Greene about the future that awaits us and, while you're at it, let Greenberg explain what still remains unnervingly " I just can't help using the word " exceptional about our version of a coup attempt. Tom
The Real Failure of January 6th
How America's Insurrectionists Crossed the Rubicon of History
Americans tuning into the television news on January 8th eyed a disturbingly recognizable scene. In an "eerily familiar" moment of "de'jà vu," just two years and two days after the January 6th Capitol insurrection in Washington, D.C., a mob of thousands stormed government buildings in the capital city of another country " Brazil. In Brasilia, what New York Times columnist Ross Douthat ominously labelled "the first major international imitation of our Capitol riot" seemed to be taking place.
As the optics suggested, there were parallels indeed, underscoring a previously underappreciated fragility in our democratic framework: the period of transition between presidencies.
Wreaking Havoc
Those January 8th rioters in Brazil were protesting the presidency of Luiz Ina'cio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula, the politician Barack Obama once referred to as "my man."
Like President Trump, Lula's predecessor, rightwing autocrat Jair Bolsonaro, had been voted out of office by a slim margin. Deemed "the Trump of the tropics," he had followed the former U.S. president's lead in seeding doubt as to election integrity in the months leading up to the vote. Like Trump, he also predicted election fraud and spread stories about rigged voting machines. Small wonder given his team's ties to former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon who had consulted with the Bolsonaro team and insisted that Brazil's election, too, would be stolen, while afterwards praising the rioters as "Brazilian freedom fighters."
The fervent Bolsonaro supporters, like their American counterparts, wreaked havoc, destroying furniture at their Supreme Court, works of art in the presidential palace, and generally leaving the insides of the buildings they stormed, including that country's congress, "in ruins."
Far more overtly than in the United States, many in the security forces in Brazil seemed to sympathize with the protesters. A Brookings report found that "while the attack unfolded, Bolsonaro supporters met surprisingly limited resistance. Police officers" were caught on camera chatting with protesters and buying coconut water." It added that "several military officials reportedly participated in the vandalism" and called the apparent "total complacency of local government and public security officials" alarming.
Still, if you peek beneath the surface, you'll find some important differences.
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