How Jealous Are You Of Brazil Right Now?

Ex-President Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years for his attempted coup.

Sep 12, 2025

Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) e Donald Trump encontram-se em Nova York, antes da abertura da Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas. 'Obrigado pela consideração, presidente', disse Bolsonaro no Twitter (Foto: Alan Santos/PR)

For years, many of us have dreamed of a beautiful Sliding Doors-esque alternate dimension in which we lived in the kind of country that would hold a former president liable for breaking the law. Or where inciting an attempted coup would be considered something of a deal-breaker when it comes to reelection.

Well, as it turns out, there is such an alternate dimension, and it is Brazil. No, not the 1985 Terry Gilliam movie, but the actual country — where the nation’s Supreme Court found 5-4 that former president Jair Bolsonaro was guilty of all five counts related to planning a coup d’etat that would have also involved assassinating the fairly elected president Lula da Silva.

He has been sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison, and will be ineligible to run for president for the next eight years. Make of that what you will. As he is 70 years old and, his lawyers say, in poor health, it’s likely that they will push to put him on house arrest instead of in prison.

Bolsonaro is more or less the Brazilian Trump, which is why Trump himself has been trying to avert such a ruling by punishing the nation economically — efforts that were criticized by several of the justices while finding Bolsonaro guilty.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the United States will have its vengeance upon the South American nation.

“The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser [Supreme Court Justice] Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil's supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro,” Rubio tweeted, adding, “The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”

After all — all Bolsonaro was trying to do was reverse by force a free and fair election he claimed was rigged against him! What’s wrong with that? It’s a perfectly normal and acceptable thing for an ex-President to do! Wholesome, even! I mean, what was he supposed to do? Just accept defeat and not try to kill Lula with explosives or poison or “weapons of war” (they hadn’t quite decided how they were going to do it)? Not try to kill his running mate or Alexandre de Moraes? (In this case, that was Lula’s running mate; he didn’t mimic Trump so closely as to try to kill his own.) Not plan to declare a state of emergency, get rid of the Supreme Court, and induce a military takeover? Not stay in power forever? Not encourage his supporters to do their own January 6?

Of course, Bolsonaro didn’t actually admit to any of these things and swears he was just trying to find a constitutional way to overturn the election.

“He never intended to stage a coup d’état. This is effectively a political movement being judged, not just its leadership,” Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, said in an interview. This is fair, because one of the primary beliefs of his “political movement” is that any election he doesn’t win must be rigged.

Bolsonaro and his allies claim that there are evil people in Brazil who are working to silence and destroy the Right and to do mean things like not let him be president forever.

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Since 1889, when the nation’s monarchy was overthrown, there have been 15 successful and failed coups — but this is the first time that the leader of such an effort is actually being punished for it.

That’s some progress. Perhaps by the 15th time the MAGA crowd tries to overthrow the government because they didn’t get their way in an election, we’ll have things figured out, too.

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