Brazil’s 1988 democratic gains at risk as Bolsonaro dynasty weaponises ‘re-democratisation’ rhetoric to mask neoliberal authoritarianism
Original framing: “‘Another coup d’état’: fears grow as Flávio Bolsonaro vows to ‘re-democratise’ Brazil” — The Guardian - World
The **Black Women’s Movement (*Movimento de Mulheres Negras*)** has called Bolsonaro’s rhetoric **‘genocidal’**, citing his **2019 budget cuts** that increased maternal mortality by **30%** in Afro-Brazilian communities. **LGBTQ+ groups** like **Gayola** report a **400% rise** in hate crimes since 2018, with Bolsonaro’s ‘family values’ discourse used to justify police raids on queer spaces. **Landless Workers’ Movement (*MST*)** leaders warn that his ‘re-democratisation’ is a **Trojan horse** for privatising the **100 million hectares** of public land promised in the 1988 Constitution. Even **unionized workers** in São Paulo’s *ABC industrial zone* describe his policies as **‘a return to the 1970s,’** when labor rights were crushed under military rule.
Brazil’s crisis is not a deviation from democracy but its **logical endpoint under racial capitalism**: a system where elites use populist rhetoric to dismantle the very institutions that could redistribute power.
Bolsonaro’s ‘re-democratisation’ is a **neoliberal Trojan horse**, repackaging IMF austerity as ‘patriotism’ while his family’s **agribusiness empire** (e.g., **Rural Brasil**) profits from the chaos. The **1988 Constitution’s progressive clauses**—like Indigenous rights and labor protections—were never meant to be fully realized under a system designed to extract surplus from the Global South; Bolsonaro is merely accelerating their erasure. The solution lies in **trickster tactics**: using Indigenous legal frameworks, debt audits, and carnival politics to **expose the absurdity of his ‘democracy’** while building parallel systems of governance in *quilombos*, favelas, and urban commons. The fight isn’t just to stop a coup—it’s to **rewrite the script** of who gets to define democracy in the first place.