Defeated former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was in Florida when his supporters tried – but failed – to overthrow the country’s nascent democracy. It was a sign that many in Latin America’s largest nation believed so strongly in his movement that they could carry on without Bolsonaro, according to a detailed Associated Press report.

While Bolsonarianism seems disoriented at the moment, the broader trend will continue. This is according to scientists who study the movement and the participants themselves, from the far-right radicals who invaded the capital to the most ordinary social conservative Brazilians. Many believe that the leftist Lula da Silva was such a threat to their country that it took the military to defeat him to prevent him from taking office.

Daniel Bressan, 35, traveled 300 miles from the interior of the state of Parana to join protesters in the capital Brasilia. He was arrested on the morning of January 9 after he and thousands of others stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace.

“Bolsonaro has given back the spirit of patriotism and family values ​​to the people, and now we must come together to continue the fight,” Bressan, who denies the vandalism of the buildings, said January 10 by phone from his detention center. . “We don’t expect anything from Bolsonaro himself.”

Some, on the other hand, relied on the taboo of nostalgia for the military dictatorship. Bolsonaro, a former army captain, supported torture and said the regime should have killed even more communists than it did. Other hardliners were attracted by his exaltation of conservative values, his complete devotion to Christianity, and his desire to arm the general public. According to anthropologist Isabella Calil, coordinator of the far-right observatory, Bolsonaro has become the “symbolic glue” that holds these groups together.

“It has more to do with how supporters are mobilizing Bolsonaro’s image than with his actions per se,” Kalil said. “These images do not depend on the figure of Bolsonaro. He partially controls them, but not completely.”

Radicalization has deepened in camps around military buildings across the country since Bolsonaro’s defeat, and hardliners are demanding military intervention to reverse the state’s return to democracy, which began three decades ago. Bolsonaro repeatedly called Lula a thief who would plunge the nation into communism.

Bolsonaro was virtually invisible after the elections and there, which surprised many who expected righteous indignation after months of doubts about electronic voting. Although he refused to admit defeat and called for the cancellation of millions of ballots, he also avoided shouting about fraud.

Two days before the inauguration of Lula Bolsonaro went to Florida. A week after the inauguration, with no clear signal from Bolsonaro or the military, the rioters began to act. Hordes smashed windows and destroyed works of art. On a wooden table in the Supreme Court, someone had carved “The Most High People.”

To the limited extent that Bolsonaro commented on the uprising, he only said that the destruction of state property was a move that crossed a line. Many of his supporters were disappointed.

“Trying to distance himself from what happened causes him to lose contact with the base that coordinated these attacks,” said Guillermo Casaroes, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university and think tank. “The attack on Brasilia was a bullet in the leg and weakened Bolsonaro as a personalist, radical movement, two of its main characteristics.”

Bolsonaro’s party was supposed to play a leading role in the opposition, but it remains unclear when the former president will return from Florida. In Brazil, several investigations against him could make it impossible for him to run for president again.

His far-right allies, who have been elected, have the opportunity to lay claim to his political booty and are therefore active in defense of the arrested rioters. Paulo Baia, a sociologist and political scientist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said he believes “the term ‘Bolsonarism’ will disappear in the coming months” even as the movement continues despite other factors.

Unlike Bolsonaro, US President Donald Trump was present on January 6 shortly before the attack on Capitol Hill, urging his supporters to storm Congress. Since then, he has continued to defend their behavior and is trying to turn support for the campaign lies that sparked the attack into a crucial issue in the November midterm elections. However, the Republican Party fared worse, making Trump’s position more precarious than at any time since 2016.

Thomas Carothers, co-director of the Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the unrest in the US and Brazil has no real precedent anywhere else, and it’s hard to predict what will happen next.

“We have to stop thinking only about Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is not the main leader,” said 28-year-old Alberdan Souza, who runs a Telegram channel about geopolitics, from Joajeiro do Norte in Brazil’s poor northeast, where he says he is… a rare teacher who proudly adheres to right views. “He is the one who caused a wave in favor of the right and a sense of Brazilian patriotism, but this movement is much bigger than Bolsonaro.”

The radicals continued to operate on social media, initially shirking responsibility for the disaster by blaming alleged left-wing invaders.

And they continue to call for staying mobilized so the military can act, calling general strikes and shutting down refineries and gas stations to “freeze” Brazil, according to Marie Santini, coordinator of the NetLab research group at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. who follows social media. So far, further aggression in the real world has been limited.

“It’s not that these calls were successful, but it shows us that the momentum for the coup remains strong,” Sandini said. “The Bolsonarians aren’t going to stop anytime soon.”

Three days after the uprising, the alleged “mega-protest to regain power” finally came to naught. On the Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, the number of protesters exceeded the number of policemen and journalists. It was a stark contrast to the scene in the same location a few weeks before the election, with airlifters, paratroopers, warships and Bolsonaro giving a speech to an excited crowd.

“I have lost the joy of life,” protester Lea Marquez, 65, said in tears. Like other Bolsonaro supporters, Marquez fears reprisals against their movement.

However, he does not give up. “People are mobilizing on social media and there is a lot of power in that,” she said through tears. “We will stay strong on the streets.”

Source: Associated Press.