Lessons For Trump? How Bolsonaro Sealed His 2018 Election Win After Assassination Attempt

-Analysis-

SÃO PAULO — It’s a movie we’ve already seen, and it wasn’t a happy ending. Facing a weakening opponent, a self-declared anti-system presidential candidate, defies not only the rules of politics but also those of common sense — on top of violating the law.

Then, in the middle of the race, tragedy strikes: a “lone wolf” attempts, in vain, to kill the anti-system populist. After this, the candidate emerges as a true hero. A myth. He is invincible.

On Saturday, Brazilians felt an anguishing sense of déjà-vu in the aftermath of the attempted murder of Donald Trump in the state of Pennsylvania. It all recalled the heated crowd and the pushing and shoving in Juiz de Fora — the southern Brazilian city where a man stabbed Jair Bolsonaro during his first presidential campaign in 2018. We watched dignified work of the men in black Secret Service agents surrounding a wounded Trump, with the epic frame of the Republican candidate’s clenched fist in front of the American flag. It captured the spirit of what is going on in the U.S., somehow even more of a Hollywood melodrama than what we lived here in Brazil.

In journalism, those claiming to know where things are going are usually wrong. But the attempt on Trump’s life will undoubtedly be a turning point in a showdown whose outcome was mostly unclear before Saturday. Witnessing these events from afar, arguing still that Trump won’t win the elections would be nothing but sheer optimism.

Major purge

Of course this is not 2018, and the United States of today is very different from Brazil back then. Moreover, Trump is not a relatively unknown figure showing the masses a new and disruptive approach to politics. And that’s exactly the problem. Since the beginning of the pre-campaign phase, and even more after the disastrous debate that highlighted Joe Biden’s weakness, Trump has been more influential than ever before.

But now, after Saturday’s shooting, Trump is the image of Bolsonaro in Paulista, on that fateful Sunday before the 2018 election, when, already far ahead in the polls, the far-right candidate declared that the “reds” would only have two options: exile or prison.

Trump’s words have further reduced the narrow moral canyon that separates politics from cheating.

But let’s move to the facts. Last week, before the murder attempt, Trump promised on Truth, his social media, that he would persecute those whom he called “electoral fraudsters.” Shortly after, he retweeted a post claiming that former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney — one of the few Republicans to openly denounce his leadership — is “guilty of treason,” and should be tried before a “military tribunal” on live TV.

Trump would return to the White House with a thirst for revenge and without the restraints of someone who might want a second term in office. So far, his words have further reduced the narrow moral canyon that separates politics from cheating, persecution and violence. And his followers love it.

Thanks to a 0 million donation from the Heritage Foundation, an organization that finances the far right in the U.S., the NGO American Accountability Foundation has been very publicly “combing through” key public officials in the federal government who might resist Trump’s policies in a possible second term. They record their affiliations, social media posts and decisions as public servants to create a list that will be published with the clear aim of promoting a major purge. The main targets will be senior officials at the State Department, Homeland Security and other agencies dealing with immigration.

Far-right alliance

Obviously, the attempt on Trump’s life also mobilized the right-wing across the world, showcasing a coalition that grows more united by the day, as seen recently at the Bolsonaro-sponsored Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held in Brazil last week. The push by the former Brazilian president to further unite the far-right in a new global coalition strengthens this point.

The main leaders of this coalition were unanimous in blaming the “left” for what happened in Pennsylvania. Argentine President Javier Milei, who was in Brazil for CPAC last week, wrote that “the desperation of the international left is not surprising, since today it sees its harmful ideology expiring and is ready to destabilize democracies and promote violence in order to hold on to power.”

There will be no repeat of the horror we went through in 2018.

The leader of Spanish far-right party Vox posted a photo of Trump with a clenched fist in front of the American flag, thanking God that he survived the assassination attempt. “We must stop the global left that is spreading hatred, ruin and war,” he wrote on X (Twitter).

In Brazil, Flavio and Michelle Bolsonaro acted as spokesperson for the far-right clan, connecting the event to what happened to Jair Bolsonaro. “The left is all over the world! Always trying to solve things with a bullet or a knife!” wrote Flavio. “Sadly this is the modus operandi of our enemies,” wrote Michelle.

One last chance

Ricardo Kotscho, a Brazilian journalist and author who worked for the Brazilian government when Lula was president from 2003 to 2004, was correct in affirming that Pennsylvania is not Juiz de Fora and that there will be no repeat of the horror we went through in 2018.

Still, it must also be acknowledged that Joe Biden doesn’t have the guts that Fernando Haddad — Bolsonaro’s opponent in 2018 — showed in that election, leading a decent electoral campaign despite having been chosen at the last minute to replace the chosen candidate, Lula, who had been put in prison.

Unless the fading Biden gives up on the nomination and enthusiastically embraces his replacement, Trump sealed his victory by surviving Saturday.