Sometimes history is full of contradictions. While the winds of democracy began to blow and undermine authoritarian regimes around the world from Iran to China to Russia, two years after the attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, in Brazil other election followers were defeated like Donald Trump, i.e. Jair. Bolsonaro, stormed the halls of another parliament to contest the outcome of the regular elections. There was no doubt that an entrenched democracy like the American one would have resisted the attack. In Brazil, on the other hand, twenty years ago it could have ended differently, but the population, the police and above all the army – except for some initial confusion – have shown that they have introduced the democratic spirit.

In an effort to see the glass as half full, this is good news because democracies in South America, traditionally seen as fragile, seem to no longer be so.

On the other hand, the glass half empty relates to another aspect that requires a more general reflection. It is a bit simplistic and misleading, in fact, to dismiss this issue as yet another sovereign aberration. Indeed, if by sovereignty we mean putting the national interest above all else, we do not see how the sovereign can question the will expressed by the people through a vote. If anything, it’s the backlash against temples of democracy that are parliaments with authoritarian veins. Just think of the gesture of Lieutenant Colonel Tejero in the Spanish Chamber of Deputies.

Thus, the question is more complex and affects the kind of dialectic that is established within a democracy: unfortunately, the protagonists often succumb to the temptation to delegitimize their opponents and regard electoral defeat almost as the emergence of a new one. regime. Such a situation, amplified through the use of social media, ends up triggering uncontrollable mechanisms that override the intentions of those who provoke it. Democratic confrontation becomes a primal clash, and when you play with fire, the appearance of a shaman and paramilitary uniform can be fatal. The worse the mood tickled in society, the bloodier the denouement. It’s the limits of political apprentices – from billionaire Trump to ex-military Bolsonaro – who turn into magicians’ apprentices.

That is why some events should serve as a lesson. Here, too, delegitimization of an opponent has been recurrent: Silvio Berlusconi has been subjected to it for decades, and even the most recent election campaign saw the Democratic Party pit the specter of fascism against Meloni.

Here, too, Parliament was surrounded by the Purple People and Bajarellini.

Or smudged with paint, as activists of the last generation did. The worst has not happened, but the fact remains that Parliament is an inviolable temple to all because it represents the nation and the popular will, or the danger of seeing pictures of Washington and Brasilia here is always just around the corner.