Sadly, as we were putting the final touches on this current issue of The Progressive, the world was glued to the TV and the Internet watching yet another horrific attack on democracy unfold, this time in Brazil. It didn’t take long to understand that what was happening there was very much a carbon copy of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
Following the mob violence perpetrated by supporters of rightwing fascist and former President Jair Bolsonaro, which trashed the country’s supreme court, presidential palace, and congress, Brazil now has its own contemporary date that will live in infamy—January 8, 2023—and it has Trump’s name all over it. If there had been any doubt that MAGA’s anti-democratic, fascistic, and violent ideology had gone global, it has now vanished.
Yet if there is a silver lining to be found in this tragedy, it is that most Brazilians are justifiably outraged and are demanding that the insurrectionists—and those who financed them—be held accountable. A study this week showed that nearly 76 percent of Brazilians opposed the attack. To date, more than 1,200 people have been arrested. The country’s supreme court has ordered the arrest of Bolsonaro’s former justice minister, Anderson Torres, who is currently in Florida, along with Bolsonaro.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was sworn in as Brazil’s president just a week before the attack, has vowed to rid the presidential palace of Bolsonaristas and traitorous military officials, replacing them instead with career civil servants. And online influencers have joined law enforcement agencies in a widespread campaign to identify the remaining insurrectionists and bring them to justice.
All of this is to say that Brazilians, who, like many people across Latin America, intimately understand what it means to live under a dictatorship, are fighting back. And we should, too. The good news is that in many respects, we are.
This issue of The Progressive highlights some of these efforts taking place thousands of miles away, in the Midwestern United States, a region that is frequently overlooked by mass media outlets. The Midwest is too often thought of as a lost cause, especially given the radicalized Republican encroachment in local and state politics in recent decades—thanks to gerrymandering, mass propaganda, and other dirty tricks.
But in Michigan, for example, voters in November’s midterm elections overwhelmingly chose to enshrine abortion and other reproductive health care rights in the state’s constitution, thanks to a growing and diverse coalition of people who decided to stand up and fight, as Molly Wadzeck Kraus writes. Sarah Lahm highlights the successful bid for a seat in the Minnesota House by Alicia Kozlowski, a Democrat with Mexican and Ojibwe roots, making them the first nonbinary legislator in Minnesota’s history.
Ruth Conniff dissects the Midwest’s Blue Wave in the midterm elections to reveal a progressive path forward that pays attention to the concerns of voters in both urban and rural areas, reminding us that “it is the people in power, not the voters, who are driving the fracturing of our nation.” John Nichols sends a message to the Democratic establishment that rural and exurban districts are worth fighting for “with a progressive and populist economic message rooted in the historic farmer-labor politics of the past century.” And Thomas M. Nelson notes that Democrats are on the right track toward becoming “a truly economic populist party”—if they put in the work.
Additionally, in a meticulously researched article, Robin Whyatt examines the colonial roots of the crisis of violence and sexual abuse that Native American women in the United States experience—a crisis which was “almost unheard of in traditional societies.” And David Kupfer provides inspiration for those committed to working toward a more equitable and just world in a colorful interview with singer-songwriter and activist Holly Near.
There is much to absorb in this issue, and I hope it will help to reassure you that while the anti-democratic forces in this country and abroad are powerful, they are not as strong as a people united in the commitment to progressive change.
David Boddiger
Managing Editor