The North American Congress on Latin America

In his first month in office, Jair Bolsonaro’s administration in Brazil has managed to construct a government that will make good on many of its militaristic, anti-environmental, homophobic, and misogynistic promises, diffusing any doubt that his campaign rhetoric was merely hot air to rile up his base. A slew of executive decrees and legislative projects have demonstrated that Brazil’s new government intends to deliver on its platform of militarizing the police, easing access to firearms, undermining environmental regulation, dispossessing Indigenous lands, and inaugurating a new era of domestic and foreign affairs in Latin America that seeks to banish the Left from its ranks. With pro-government leadership stacking both the House and Senate, Bolsonaro’s legislative path, too, is clearer than many would have imagined.