The Trump administration’s recent tariff threat against Brazil, coupled with his sanctioning of Justice Alexandre de Moraes through the Magnitsky Act, has many wondering why he picked a fight against another country's Supreme Court.

Is this just petty spite, after Rumble — his pet social media project — was banned? Is he just angry that his ally, former Brazilian President Jair “Trump of the Tropics” Bolsonaro, will likely be jailed? Or is the Trump administration right in claiming that the court has undermined the rule of law and the very Constitution it was sworn to protect?

Surprisingly, Trump’s criticism of Brazil's court is largely correct.

In recent years, Brazil’s Supreme court has become the most powerful institution in the country. It investigates, accuses, censors, and legislates. It is now acting as judge, jury, and executioner.

What may not be obvious to outsiders is that this apparently unprecedented power-grab bears all the hallmarks of Brazil’s 500-year legacy of patrimonialism. Not only does the court issue arbitrary rulings, but it also extends the Brazilian tradition of empowering an all-powerful, censorious, long-standing elite.

This modus operandi started early in our history. With the Portuguese metropolis on the other side of the ocean, colonial plantations, governed by the farming elites, became the closest thing Brazil had to a state apparatus. Political power followed economic power. Political authority legitimized by royal titles passed from one generation to the next — entrenched indefinitely.

Similar patterns of absolute, longstanding power continued after Brazil's 1822 independence. For the nation’s first sixty years, "friends of the king" dominated Brazilian politics. They issued judicial decisions, controlled parliament, and counseled the king, all to serve the interests of their class, and under the protection of life-long, royal titles.

But they also added a new layer to Brazilian politics: control over public opinion. The first law against........

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