I was recently part of a study mission to Brasilia for American democracy and rule of law practitioners to learn from Brazil’s experience in protecting elections, building broad pro-democracy coalitions, and holding leaders to account. Having been on several visits of this nature to other countries, Brazil was arguably the most compelling and relevant for gleaning lessons. Like the United States, it is a big, diverse nation with a federalist system. It has the legacy of slavery and racial oppression. It is a polarized electorate, with significant cleavages – often fueled by disinformation – on vaccines, LGBTQ rights, gender, elections, and traditional culture. It has a significant evangelical community with charismatic leaders who play an oversized role in politics. Critically, like President Donald Trump’s actions in 2020 and 2021, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro sowed doubt in advance of the country’s 2022 elections, spread lies about the results because he lost, and fomented a mob to storm government and judicial offices on Jan. 8, 2023.
What makes the United States very different, however, is that Brazilian institutions and civic actors united across ideology, party, and sector to publicly defend its democracy and put Bolsonaro – and his accomplices – behind bars. How?
There is of course no one ingredient or explanation for Brazil’s success in this regard — it was a combination of history, tactics, institutions, and civic actors that fended off Bolsonaro’s attempted coup and held him to account. While some of these lessons and strategies could inspire Americans and even be replicated, many of them unfortunately expose shortcomings in the United States and raise questions about the inability of Americans to act more forcefully in defense of democracy.
The Power of Memory
The lived memory of more than two decades of dictatorship clearly heightened Brazil’s ability to push back against an authoritarian grab. Having “experienced coups,” Brazilians repeatedly told the delegation that there was no appetite for Bolsonaro’s actions in 2022 and 2023, and even those more ideologically aligned with his party would not tolerate his attempt to destabilize the country.
This is a tricky lesson for Americans who have not experienced authoritarianism in their lifetimes. However, many Americans have had this experience, namely communities of color that do remember segregation, racist voting laws, discrimination in housing and employment, and absence of civil rights. These communities are in the lead on the democracy charge today, employing well-tested tactics from the civil rights movement, and the broader pro-democracy community should follow their example.
Building Broad Coalitions
While the United States has a robust civil society and hundreds of important coalitions working on various aspects of democracy, it lacks the “connective tissue” between efforts, leaving them somewhat scattered and decentralized. Brazil built national, coordinated pro-democracy coalitions with a clear vision and communication strategy. Importantly, these coalitions truly spanned ideology, bringing in people on the right and left. Brazilians explained to us that they were able to preserve such pluralism by avoiding partisan labels and not requiring consensus decision-making. There are definitely lessons Americans can gather here.
Brazil’s coalitions were also cross-sector – business and banking leaders linked arms with labor members and activists to defend democracy. Brazilian experts explained that, alongside broad-based, open coalitions, they built parallel “elite” coalitions comprised of former political figures and high-level business leaders to quietly connect to influential sectors (business, banking) and engage their support.
This coalition-building success provides less of a lesson for Americans and more a series of questions. Why did business leaders in Brazil sign on to a public letter defending the elections — against their president — while many, though not all, business leaders in the United States grovel to and bribe President Donald Trump, rarely speaking out in defense of democracy? This should prompt some serious introspection about how to change American business culture. Are there ways to build collective action? Maybe it is worth revisiting how business schools could play a greater role in building cadres of ethical future leaders, given mixed results of past efforts in instilling ethics in the curricula? Citizens of course have a role to play here, too, for example by employing boycotts, as activists have done before.
Valuing the Balance of Power
In Brazil, their Congress and Supreme Court fiercely defended their own powers. In fact, several Brazilians speculated to the delegation that Congress and the Court’s pushback on Bolsonaro had perhaps as much to do with self-interested preservation of their powers as it did with defending democracy. One of the more confusing aspects of today’s American politics is Congress’s willingness to abdicate its powers to the executive — whether it is the power of the purse, tariffs, war, or oversight. Congress stood back and allowed the administration to impound programs it funded, kill congressionally mandated agencies, wage war, and refuse to implement its legislation.
Perhaps the only real lesson for Americans here is to elect members to Congress who value, take pride in, and will defend the power of Congress as most directly representing the people. Civil society and pro-democracy organizations need to expand campaigns and education efforts to counter the unitary executive theory and continually pressure congressional leaders to exert their authority.
Proportional and Multiparty Representation
Related to the point above on balance of power, as in other countries, Brazil’s proportional representation delivers a pluralistic, multi-party legislature. Because Bolsonaro’s party did not control Congress, he had to contend with competitive power centers. Brazilians explained that congressional oversight would not have been as effective had they had a two-party system, and the multi-party playing field allowed for those on the right and left to form alliances to protect congressional authority.
This issue of changing the electoral system often meets a dead end in the United States as its majoritarian, first-past-the-post, two-party system is so calcified, despite being not fit for purpose today. While the obstacles may be great, pro-democracy groups should not give up on pushing for change and building on progress at the local level with ranked choice, multimember districts, and proportional representation.
Court Powers and the “Militant Democracy Mechanism”
Brazil’s constitution protects democracy in a way that seems inconceivable in the United States. The 1988 Brazilian Constitution embraced the “militant democracy mechanism,” which was conceptualized by Karl Loewenstein in 1937 to advocate for measures to protect democracy from fascist forces that can seize power through democratic means. It allows the courts to suspend parties if they engage in anti-democratic behavior and establishes unamendable clauses in a constitution (such as protection of rights). Racism is also a crime under Brazil’s constitution. In addition, the penal code includes provisions penalizing the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law and attempting a coup d’état, which was what the court used to pursue anti-democratic actors and ultimately jail Bolsonaro. The Supreme Court also was able to shut down media sites spreading disinformation and election lies, as the law prohibits certain types of speech, like several European nations, to limit hateful and violent rhetoric.
While Brazilians acknowledge the potential dangers of these democracy-protection mechanisms should the Court fall into the “wrong hands,” the United States has relied too much on “norms” and “responsible” leadership to uphold its democracy. Could Americans coalesce around common values worthy of more robust democracy protections, understanding that democracy today is often attacked by democratically elected leaders? Further, the United States could try to follow the lead of other nations that have managed to thread the needle of protecting free speech while addressing the poisonous disinformation undermining democracy (as well as hurting kids and making people sick). Legal scholars have argued, for example, that criminalizing election lies and disqualifying candidates who spread disinformation do not contradict our First Amendment.
A Cross-Society Approach
Brazil is certainly not out of the woods and has many democratic vulnerabilities, including the fact that Bolsonaro still commands public support from around 40 percent of the population. In fact, Bolsonaro’s son is running in the upcoming elections on Oct. 4, with a key campaign promise to free his father. However, the country’s ability to unite against an authoritarian by employing a cross-sectoral approach should inspire others. The frustrating statement from the American visitors, including myself, repeated throughout the mission was, “Well, we could never do that.” American “exceptionalism” has morphed from a sense of freedom and hope to endless limitations and confinement — mired in a system that seems almost impossible to change, because sufficient change might require either constitutional amendments or reforms — electoral or otherwise — that would threaten the power of the very people who are needed to advance them.
The lesson for Americans is not only to understand the fallacy of “It Can’t Happen Here,” but also to stop with the “we can’t do that here.” Take Brazilians’ advice on building broad, ideologically diverse national coalitions, including roping in businesses through persuasion and pressure. Launch campaigns to rethink the electoral system — as New Zealand did in the early 1990s — so everyone is represented fairly and so that the U.S. Congress is more politically diverse. And advocate for more immovable democracy protections to avoid the need to depend on the will of one or two people to “do the right thing” when faced with an authoritarian threat, such as the senior election official in Georgia who certified the true election result in which Trump lost in 2020, or a vice president — such as Mike Pence — unwilling to follow the president’s command to overturn the result in Congress.
Hopefully, the United States won’t require an experience with dictatorship to understand the threats and act accordingly.
