Although the parallels are similar there is one big difference between US and Brazil political system: Dual-party system.
Trump bullied the republican party and purged anyone who is not loyal to him, and through his party he got a good chunk of the congress to be subservient to him.
Brazil has multiple parties and therefor Bolsonaro couldn't worm his way into having major legislative and judiciary power as well.
One big thing in Brazil is that the voting process is conducted in two phases: Phase 1 all candidates get votes, if no one got >50% of the votes then there is a Phase 2 where only the top 2 candidates can be voted on. So voting for a 3rd party on Phase 1 is not detrimental and the main parties need to make coalitions.
So it works a bit like you see in parliamentary systems, but once in power it is quite common for the coalitions to fade away or congress-people to vote against the coalition stalemating the legislative and reforms. It is also why there is so much corruption in Brazil's congress, vote-buying can be achieved on an individual-level instead of a party-level.
Also please don't praise the current Brazilian president, he is part of the problem and making the country politics even more like the US (increasing polarization through populist movements). He is just doing it from the left side of the political spectrum. He is just not insane wannabe-dictator like Bolsonaro.
The Trump playbook didn't work in Brazil because of the way the systems and institutions are set up. But these differences have both upsides and downsides.
Multiple parties that eventually devolve into a two-party system, for decades it was PT-PSDB until PSDB imploded, now it's PT vs whatever the right/center coalesces into(MDB for decades, PSC after that, now PL). In fact it's more of a two-personalities system at this point, with the right clinging desperately into Bolsonaro's fading popularity while the left clings onto Lula's image as much as they can after failing to make any successor popular.
And after elections, yes, it just turns into negotiation with center parties that will sell off their support for vote-buying projects.
You’re underselling the power and importance of other parties to democracy. To compare it to a two party system because some parties are stronger at times is incorrect.
Like you said, PSDB is a dead party today. PT has had only 20 years of presidential power, interrupted by a far right party. PL seems likely to split up in the next few years due to Bolsonaro.
There's no such thing as 60 years of two parties having mostly the same views and locked in one against the other, in every region of the country, like the US. That is incredibly harmful to democracy.
I’m old enough to have seen changes in our political system. The center parties, while mostly not center and corrupt, give our system a sort of chaotic nature where compromises and alliances are necessary. That in itself has value in a democracy.
> In fact it's more of a two-personalities system at this point
Yes, well put. This is what I meant that the current president is not making things better. But it is still fundamentally different from how the US works, centrist parties get a decent amount of votes. You almost never see elections where there is not a 2nd round of votes because no one got >50% on the first one.
It looks very weird if a congress-person in the US votes against the party, isn't it?. In Brazil it is not that unnusual.
In Brazil vote-buying happens through suit-cases full of dollars, in the US it happens through lobbying and promises of cushy jobs after you leave congress. Both are bad but suit-cases are much worse.
This is also why it is so hard to actually enact reforms in Brazil, literally impossible to pass any big reforms without bribing a lot of people. Some politicians will actively vote against passing bills just because they didn't get a kickback.
Lobbying is just corruption legalized. The only reason they use suit-cases and underwear filled with money in Brazil is because the corruption hasn’t developed the same veneer of legality yet.
The ideal amount of corruption is not 0, but equating lobbying to suit-cases is disingenuous. Suite-cases are far more damaging and cheaper way to get congress votes and only brings the most unscrupulous people who want to plunder the most out of government intervention.
There are of course multiple ways to do multi-party systems, and the Brazilian system is quite different from some other multi-party systems.
IMHO the state of things in the US seems unique dysfunctional. None of the major institutions really work as were intended. The constitution is so hard to change that it's effectively ossified, which results in the Supreme Court deciding on huge swaths of life. In a healthy democratic system, many of these should be decided by democratic vote and not a tea-leaf reading of a vague 250-year old sentence.
> He is just not insane wannabe-dictator like Bolsonaro.
He's worse.
He openly plots the installation of socialism in this country, literally said he wanted to do it on national television. He suffered zero consequences.
The communist venezuelan dictator who Trump is on the verge of nuking? He rolled out the red carpet for him and pretty much gifted him billions of our taxpayer money. No doubt he's up to his nose in Iran's nuclear business as well.
It's not enough for him to covertly rob people of their hard earned money through his corrupt champagne socialist nonsense, he actually feels the need to minimize and normalize literal armed robbery as well. He's been filmed making shoddy excuses for literal violent crime. "I'm tired of seeing people die just because they stole a phone", he says. "It's just to make a little money and buy beer at the bar".
I'd take Bolsonaro over this guy any day. At least with Bolsonaro there's a chance for my country as a whole to prosper, if not me personally. Lula being president actually makes me want to turn to crime.
Imagine what it must feel like being a normal person living in a shithole ruled by organized crime. Imagine getting married and trying to raise a family, only to wake up one day and read on the news that 26% of your country's vast territory is dominated by violent drug trafficking borderline terrorist organized crime gangs so powerful they are essentially parallel governments. At this point it's possible they've even literally infiltrated the official government as well.
All because of crime abiding politicians like Lula and his communists.
Trump bullied the republican party and purged anyone who is not loyal to him, and through his party he got a good chunk of the congress to be subservient to him.
Brazil has multiple parties and therefor Bolsonaro couldn't worm his way into having major legislative and judiciary power as well.
One big thing in Brazil is that the voting process is conducted in two phases: Phase 1 all candidates get votes, if no one got >50% of the votes then there is a Phase 2 where only the top 2 candidates can be voted on. So voting for a 3rd party on Phase 1 is not detrimental and the main parties need to make coalitions.
So it works a bit like you see in parliamentary systems, but once in power it is quite common for the coalitions to fade away or congress-people to vote against the coalition stalemating the legislative and reforms. It is also why there is so much corruption in Brazil's congress, vote-buying can be achieved on an individual-level instead of a party-level.
Also please don't praise the current Brazilian president, he is part of the problem and making the country politics even more like the US (increasing polarization through populist movements). He is just doing it from the left side of the political spectrum. He is just not insane wannabe-dictator like Bolsonaro.
The Trump playbook didn't work in Brazil because of the way the systems and institutions are set up. But these differences have both upsides and downsides.