Brazilian here. We don't have rule of law here anymore. It's a covert dictatorship run at the front end by one judge, Alexandre de Moraes, and a small group of collaborators. He interprets the law however he wants or just outright ignores it in favor of ad hoc absurd interpretations, and there is no one left to judge the "supreme" judge. He effectively figures as accuser, defendant and judge in his own cases, which he of course rules in his own favor, establishes new executive agencies with no legal basis, threatens any deputy or senator that dares criticise him with incarceration, bankruptcy, or social social media banning, with no due trial or legal basis, and in absolute legal secrecy, which should be illegal by itself, but so it goes.
Not even 10% of his insanity arrives untouched by editorialization in the Northern Hemisphere, you're being fed a polished, low bandwidth version of our affairs here, mostly because Brazil isn't a key enough global player for anyone to care, but also out of typical political bias. Glenn Greenwald has been attempting to bridge that gap, and has done as good of a job as possible so far.
The checks and balances in our jurisdiction are sufficiently tenuous that, with a relatively small group of people in key positions of power, you can gate-keep any viable democratic venues for impeaching him. A new profile on X called "Alexandre Files" is beginning to post his unlawful rulings.
His approval was 37% in March of this year, when most of the centrists were still openly with him, and most of the recent major scandals hadn't come into full play yet. Now that even the moderate part of the left is denouncing the blatant illegalities on his part, moreover after a leak of his whatsapp group, it wouldn't surprise me to be in the low 20s or even 10s now. Even major national left-wing publications are coming against him now, and I believe it's a matter of time before international media catches up.
He essentially used Bolsonaro supporter's rebellion as an excuse to impose a dictatorship of the judiciary in the name of "saving democracy". Those people indeed had to be judged for the crime of violating public property, but being unarmed, it's impossible to characterize a coup. This whole thing is a circus.
Thank you for the information. Everyone else on here is doing the aggressive, ignorant, high-minded American routine. I’ll keep reading but it looks like my suspicions are confirmed.
Whether the law is right or not is irrelevant. You either comply or leave.