Same crime, different fate for Bolsonaro and Trump

Compared to the 2022 Brazilian attempted coup, the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol was much less serious—yet look at which country is in deep trouble now. What went wrong in the United States?

Most Republican voters still believe that U.S. President Donald Trump, left, won the 2020 election. By contrast, only 36 per cent of Brazilians doubt that former president Jair Bolsonaro was part of the 2022 coup plot, writes Gwynne Dyer.Photographs courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

September 15, 2025

LONDON, U.K.—If United States President 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 has been sentenced to 27 years in prison. Bolsonaro’s crime was to have pl...

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