GWYNNE DYER: Brazil and US presidents commit same crime, different fate
Trump supporters stormed the US Congress and no indictment occurred, Brazilian president now has 27 years in jail for similar event
If Donald Trump were a religious man, he might have said, “There but for the grace of God go I,” when he heard that former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro had been sentenced to 27 years in prison.
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Bolsonaro’s crime was to have plotted a coup to take back the presidency he lost in the 2022 election.
Trump is acutely aware of the similarities between Bolsonaro’s case and his own bumbling, half-hearted attempt to incite a coup on Jan. 6, 2021.
Both men were voted out after a single term in office, both immediately declared that the election had been ‘stolen’ by the opposition, and both then chickened out of a coup at the last moment.
Trump feels the parallels so keenly that he did not just condemn the Bolsonaro trial, claiming that it was a “witch-hunt”. Although the United States has a positive trade balance with Brazil, Trump has imposed 50 per cent tariffs on imports from Brazil as an explicit punishment for putting his friend and ally on trial.
Trump must be feeling close to all-powerful right now. Only eight months........
© PNI Atlantic news
