Democracy will not die at the hands of a general, nor will it be buried by a classic coup d'état. There will be no tanks in the streets, no abrupt shutdown of parliaments, no immediate suspension of constitutions. Twenty-first-century democracy dies in a much more subtle, sophisticated, and therefore far more dangerous way: it dies at the hands of its own citizens, who are convinced they are defending it.

The tragedy of contemporary Brazil lies not only in political radicalization. It lies in the transformation of ignorance into collective identity, verbal violence into moral virtue, and ridicule into an ideological platform. The most radical wing of Bolsonarism has ceased to be merely a political movement, it has become a cultural phenomenon marked by the aestheticization of brutality and the glorification of stupidity.