From Rio to Orlando: How Bolsonaro Exported Banana-Republic Chic to the World Stage
Jair Bolsonaro: The Tropical Trump Who Refused to Leave Quietly
SÃO PAULO—While the rest of the planet spent the early 2020s arguing over pandemic etiquette and whether Netflix thumbnails now count as culture, Brazil elected the world’s loudest denialist, watched him botch a public-health crisis with almost artistic incompetence, and then endured his extended tantrum when voters decided they’d had enough carnival for one decade. In other words, the Bolsonaro show has been the geopolitical equivalent of a three-year open-bar wedding where the groom sets the cake on fire and still demands applause.
Internationally, the former army captain’s rise was greeted with the sort of horrified fascination usually reserved for slow-motion train derailments or experimental British cuisine. Investors loved him—until they realized that “pro-business” in Bolsonarish means handing the Amazon to soy barons and calling it a supply-chain miracle. European leaders discovered that lecturing him on carbon emissions was like scolding a chainsaw for being noisy. Meanwhile, Washington oscillated between courtship (cheap beef! anti-China vibes!) and mild panic (insurrection chic was suddenly contagious).
The implications of the Bolsonaro era stretch far beyond South America’s borders. First, he weaponized WhatsApp with such gusto that Cambridge Analytica veterans reportedly sent him a fruit basket. Second, he mainstreamed the notion that democracy is merely one menu option—tempting for politicians from Budapest to Arizona who prefer à-la-carte governance. Third, he proved that a sufficiently charismatic authoritarian can monetize nostalgia for military dictatorship even while live-streaming it on TikTok. If that sounds oxymoronic, welcome to the 21st century, where cognitive dissonance is the new black.
Then came January 8, 2023, the day after Lula’s third inauguration. Thousands of yellow-and-green-clad protestors stormed the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace, apparently convinced that Brazilian democracy was a software bug in need of a hard reset. Cable news anchors recycled the phrase “Brazil’s January 6” with the enthusiasm of a Netflix true-crime narrator discovering a second season. The difference, of course, was that Bolsonaro himself had already decamped to Florida—a state whose governor specializes in hosting controversial right-wing retirees like some sort of extremist Disney World. There, between orthodontist visits and drive-thru empanadas, the ex-president continued to insist the election was rigged, thereby exporting the “Stop the Steal” franchise to new hemispheric markets.
Global institutions responded with their usual vigor: the G7 issued a sternly worded sigh, the IMF updated spreadsheets, and the UN climate talks politely pretended not to notice the 3,000 extra square kilometers of rainforest that mysteriously evaporated on Bolsonaro’s watch. Environmental NGOs, meanwhile, hired extra therapy staff for burnt-out activists who now measure success in “slightly slower apocalypse.”
Yet the broader significance is darker than any spreadsheet can capture. Bolsonaro’s playbook—mock science, delegitimize courts, cultivate a personality cult, then cry fraud when the ballots don’t smile back—has become a franchisable model. From Manila to Madrid, aspiring autocrats study his speeches the way marketing majors binge Super Bowl ads. And why not? The ROI on chaos is impressive: a few years of headline hyperinflation, a bit of light treason, and you still get to keep the condo in Orlando.
Brazil, resilient as ever, has begun the bureaucratic slog of undoing the damage. Lula’s administration is busy repainting ministries, recalibrating foreign policy, and reassuring the planet that the lungs of the Earth are no longer on clearance sale. Whether the world believes him depends largely on the price of beef futures and whether EU satellites see more trees or more cattle.
In the end, Bolsonaro leaves behind a legacy as subtle as a carnival float shaped like a flamethrower. He showed that democracy’s guardrails are only as strong as the people holding the keys—and that some people think keys work better as shivs. For the rest of us, the takeaway is simple: never underestimate a man who can weaponize nostalgia, WhatsApp, and sheer audacity all before breakfast. The planet is large, but the supply of such men is depressingly renewable.
