How many times have you nonchalantly asked, “What’s this world coming to?”
It’s no longer an idle question. It’s no longer an indifferent answer.
What this world has come to is an intercontinental outburst of right-wing movements, feeding off each other and egging each other on. What this world has come to is an anti-democratic playlist of diehard grievances and diehard goals.
Wait a week and another paradigm might rear its ugly head but right now, there are two parallels. One is between reactionary zealots in the U.S. and reactionary zealots in Brazil, in both cases defacing democracy to keep two defeated presidents in office. The other is between a pair of principle-challenged political leaders, one in Washington and one in Jerusalem, each willing to elevate the most extremist elements in his orbit to preside at the apex of power.
First, Brazil. Almost two years to the day after American insurrectionists stormed and vandalized the United States Capitol and briefly put our democracy on a precarious footing, Brazilian radicals this past Sunday did the same with theirs.
In both cases, the gullible mobs were inspired by the willful lies of their leaders, Jair Bolsonaro…
… and Donald J. Trump.
In Brazil, their leader had predicted a rigged election even before it was held— “If I don’t win, it will be because the opposition cheated us”— as did ours. In Brazil, their leader refused to concede his election loss, as did ours. In Brazil, their leader’s son, Edwardo, pushed preposterous fictions about foreign forces meddling in the vote, as did our leader’s son, Don Jr. In Brazil, the leader’s lackeys urged the military to intervene and restore him to office. Two years ago, our leader’s lackeys did the same.
In Brasilia last Sunday, they sacked the home of their government, acting out the script that Trump’s people wrote for January 6th, 2020, in Washington.
Back when both Brazil’s leader and ours held their nations’ highest offices, if one said “fake news,” the other repeated it. If one downplayed the dangers of the pandemic, the other doubled down. If one evinced envy for authoritarian kingpins unimpeded by the pesky principles of democracy, the other was equally envious. They were like brothers from different mothers.
That’s why, when the Brazilian strongman was trying three months ago to win reelection, his narcissistic American apologist tried to help, writing on his website, “‘Tropical Trump’ as he is affectionately called, has done a GREAT job for the wonderful people of Brazil.”
What’s the world coming to? A state where if renegades can’t win what they want fair and square, they’ll try to take it another way. Trump apostle Steve Bannon even calls the Brazilian rabble “freedom fighters.” That’s eerily identical to what he called the mob at the United States Capitol.
The other parallel between right-wing movements bespeaks the symmetry of the American right and the Israeli right.
On the U.S. side, in his hunger to be Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy last week made concession after concession to the most hardline members of his Republican caucus. The result? Although far from a majority within the House, these members will hold everything they want over McCarthy’s head and from all we’ve seen, he will capitulate. When ringleader Matt Gaetz of Florida was asked why he finally folded his cards and allowed McCarthy to grab the Speaker’s gavel, he answered with swagger, “I ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for.”
When another, Chip Roy of Texas, was asked if there will be more chaos like last week’s, he arrogantly answered, “I hope so.”
These guys aren’t just the fringe of Republican Party anymore. They are the face.
On the Israeli side, in his hunger to be prime minister for the third time, Benjamin Netanyahu also caved, abandoning any lingering pretense of centrism.
To win power once again, he created a coalition of extremist parties the likes of which Israel has never seen. In a parallel to the ultra-right in Washington, power now sits in the hands of the ultra-Orthodox in Jerusalem. With Netanyahu’s blessing, they have reinforced their influence to have everything from gender-segregated beaches to exemptions from military service to stipends for religious study as a substitute for secular work. There is even an ultra-Orthodox demand to place limits on the “Law of Return” that gives citizenship to Jews from the diaspora, and another to settle certain kinds of legal disputes in the framework of ancient religious law. And, to antagonistically annex even more of the Palestinian West Bank.
Netanyahu has become more conciliatory toward the ultra-Orthodox and more uncompromising toward the Palestinians.
As with the ultra-right in the U.S., the ultra-Orthodox minority isn’t just the fringe of Israeli society any more, it is becoming its face.
The proud Israeli era of leaders like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir, Abba Eban and Moshe Dayan, has gone the way of the proud American era of leaders like Dwight David Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.
That’s what this world has come to.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 36-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Well said, Greg. Thank you
When I awoke this morning, my television had somehow switched to FOX news and as I watched for a few minutes I got that same helpless feeling that you just described. "What is this world coming to" when you have people believing and saying the spew that is so widely welcomed into so many homes nowadays.