Jan. 11—As the idiom goes, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat. But history never really repeats—it rhymes.
The players change, as do the locations. Situations may be similar—enough to feel like d éj à vu—but never exactly alike. Not a replay, but an echo ; not a repeat, but a rhyme.
Last Friday marked the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, when rioters fueled by former President Donald Trump's election conspiracies stormed the seat of government, threatening Congress and the certification of the 2020 election. On Sunday, an eerie echo of that day played out in Brazil, where violent protesters besieged the country's seat of power, storming the Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential offices, fueled by the former Brazilian president's false claims that the 2022 election was stolen from him.
A far-right strongman with an authoritarian bent, Jair Bolsonaro spent the years leading up the last election sowing doubt in Brazil's election systems and insisting that the next election would be rigged against him. He touted false claims of rampant voter fraud and airing conspiracies about electronic voting machines—following Trump's playbook nearly to the letter. When Bolsonaro lost to Luiz In ácio Lula da Silva, his supporters took this as confirmation of everything their leader had said was true.
And so one week after Lula took office, protesters fell upon Brazil's capital and things quickly turned violent.
But history does not...
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