Article contentHow does it compare to US Congress siege?Article contentThe siege of the US Congress the previous January was a less organized affair. Trump’s most extreme supporters had been planning a protest in Washington on the day when Vice-President Pence was supposed to ratify the election results, but Trump’s incendiary speech on the morning of Jan. 6 was short on detailed instructions, and then he went home.Article contentA mob of extreme Trump backers broke into the Capitol and they might have murdered Pence if they had caught him, but this shambles was never going to end as a successful coup.Article contentCompared to the Brazilian events, it was much less serious — yet look at which country is in deep trouble now. What went wrong in the United States?Article contentWhy the different response?Article contentBasically, Brazil brought the guilty men to book right away (although the actual court proceedings took a long time). The United States waited too long, and Trump went got away with it.Article contentArticle contentInitially, both houses of the US Congress were ready to impeach Trump (who was still in office for another two weeks).Article content“The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president,” said Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader of the Senate.Article contentIf Congress had acted promptly, the impeachment would have been successful, and Trump could never have run again. But they waited, and the old partisan loyalties quickly reasserted themselves, and it never did happen.Article contentThat is not to say that another hard-right populist could not have won the US election in 2024, but it would have been a lot less likely. The old, law-abiding Republican Party might have taken back control, and the extremists on both sides might have been rejected. But maybe not, because the polarisation is more deeply entrenched in the United States.Article contentAn overwhelming majority of Republican voters still believe that Trump really won the 2020 election. By contrast, only 36 per cent of Brazilians doubt that Bolsonaro was part of the coup plot, even though the voters are almost equally split between him and Lula.Article contentThere is an election due in Brazil next year, and if Bolsonaro’s party wins the presidency, he would swiftly be amnestied. Nothing is certain, but for the moment, Trump’s assault on Brazil’s sovereignty is pushing public opinion in Lula’s favour.Article contentMeanwhile, in the US, the scene darkens.Article contentGwynne Dyer’s new book is ‘Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers’. The previous book, ‘The Shortest History of War’, is also still available. Article content
GWYNNE DYER: Brazil and US presidents commit same crime, different fate
