On Tuesday, the trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro and the members of the “crucial core” of the January 8, 2023 coup conspiracy resumed in Brazil.

This week marks the decisive phase of the trial, in which the justices of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) present their votes and a final verdict against the accused, with a closing session scheduled for Friday.

Three of the five STF justices already cast their votes. On Tuesday, justices Alexandre de Moraes and Flávio Dino voted for the conviction of Bolsonaro and his seven chief co-conspirators, who include former military commanders and four-star generals.

Today, justice Luiz Fux—expected to be the lone dissenting voice among the panel—made his presentation. Not only did Fux vote to acquit Bolsonaro, but he argued for the annulment of the entire trial, declaring the Supreme Court’s “absolute incompetence” to judge the case.

Even with an expected defeat of Fux’s position in the final vote count, his arguments have incalculable political implications. They were enthusiastically welcomed by Bolsonaro’s fascist allies and will serve as a weapon in their ongoing war against the trial.

The week’s proceedings began with Moraes, the case’s rapporteur, grounding his vote on a compelling recollection of the “sequence of executory acts” of the coup attempt, carried out between July 2021 and January 8, 2023.

Among the extraordinary events highlighted by Moraes are:

• Use of state bodies and official communications to “delegitimize the elections, to delegitimize the judiciary and to cling to power.”

• Use of the Federal Highway Police during the second round of the 2022 elections to impede voters’ access to polling places.

• Use of the Armed Forces and its report on the “auditing” of electronic ballot boxes to maliciously discredit the electoral process.

• A long sequence of violent and terrorist actions carried out in the aftermath of the second round of the elections.

• The “Punhal Verde Amarelo” (“Green-and-Yellow Dagger”) plan to assassinate the president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers Party—PT), Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin, and Moraes himself, then president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).

• The preparation of the so-called “Coup Draft” and its presentation to the commanders of the Armed Forces with the aim of establishing a state of exception and transferring power to a “Crisis Cabinet” under the defendants’ command.

• The January 8, 2023 fascist insurrection in Brasília.

Analyzing the implications of this elaborate coup attempt, Moraes concluded: “Brazil almost returned to a dictatorship that lasted 20 years because a criminal organization formed by a political group led by Jair Bolsonaro does not accept losing elections.”

The fact that, 40 years after the end of the 1964–85 military regime, Brazil once again faced the imminent threat of a dictatorship emerges incontrovertibly from the analysis of the coup conspiracy led by the former president and a section of the top military brass.

However, Moraes’ idea that the source of this threat boils down to “a political group” that “doesn’t accept losing elections”—the thesis underpinning the STF’s case as a whole—is absurd.

The threat of a fascist coup in Brazil is a product of the immense unresolved historical contradictions in one of the most socially unequal countries in the world, and, no less, of its deep interaction with an accelerating international crisis.

The reality is that the political crisis culminating in the attempted coup of January 8, 2023, was not and will not be resolved with the conclusion of the trial. This is demonstrated by the explosive situation in which this process is unfolding.

The fascist forces that promoted the January 8 coup attempt in Brazil are engaged in a counteroffensive to implode the ongoing trial and carry forward their political objectives. At the same time, under the leadership of Donald Trump, American imperialism is escalating an aggressive political intervention against Brazil.

On Tuesday, the United States doubled down on its criminal intimidation of Brazil’s political institutions, following the imposition of 50 percent tariffs by Trump, openly presented as a means of forcing the suppression of the proceedings against Bolsonaro.

Asked about potential new measures by the US government against Brazil, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared Wednesday morning: “I don’t have any additional action to preview for you today, but I can say this is a priority for the administration and the president is unafraid to use the economic might, the military might of the United States of America to protect free speech around the world.”

Leavitt also referred to the supposed “censorship” suffered by Trump himself, for having his social media accounts suspended after the attempted coup of January 6, 2021 at the Capitol in Washington. That reference is highly significant: the fascist American president sees himself, rightly so, reflected in the trial of Bolsonaro, whose coup attempt was directly inspired by Trump’s dictatorial conspiracy.

The threat to use American “military power” against Brazil, the largest country in Latin America and a historic US ally, is absolutely reckless and unprecedented. But it must be taken with total seriousness.

It arises in the context of the deployment of a US naval armada to threaten Venezuela, marking a historic military escalation against Latin America as a whole. Last week, the US Armed Forces blew up a civilian vessel in the southern Caribbean in open violation of both international and US law.

Emboldened by the backing of the same imperialist power that promoted the 1964 military coup in Brazil, Bolsonaro’s fascist allies are mobilizing broad sections of the rotten bourgeois political establishment, including the governors of the country’s main states and the majority of Congress.

Brazil’s Independence Day commemorations last Sunday, which in the past were used as a platform for Bolsonaro to promote his coup attempt, served as the spearhead for an attack on the ongoing trial in the Supreme Court. Under the slogan “React, Brazil,” the ex-president’s fascist rallies advocated “broad amnesty” for those convicted in relation to the January 8 coup attempt.

At the main rally in São Paulo, demonstrators dressed in green and yellow (the Brazilian flag’s colors) as they displayed a giant flag of the United States and held signs in English calling for an intervention by Trump. With Bolsonaro under house arrest, the stage was occupied by the former first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, who played a recording of her husband shouting his fascist-inspired slogan, “God, Fatherland and Freedom.”

The event on the famous Avenida Paulista was also attended by the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), the governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema (New Party), and the governor of Santa Catarina, Jorginho Mello (Liberal Party—PL).

Freitas, who is promoting himself as the far right’s alternative for the 2026 presidential election, openly identified himself with Bolsonaro’s fascist political legacy and delivered an inflammatory speech attacking the Supreme Court. The São Paulo governor declared that “No one can stand the tyranny of a judge like Moraes anymore,” and stated that he will not accept “any dictator telling us what we have to do.”

Recently, Freitas declared that, if elected president in 2026, his “first act” in office would be to grant a presidential pardon to Bolsonaro for whatever crimes he is charged with.

In Rio de Janeiro, the September 7 fascist rally was attended by the ex-president’s son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, and by Rio’s governor, Cláudio Castro, both from the PL.
Also present was deputy Alexandre Ramagem, one of the eight members of the “crucial core” of the coup conspiracy on trial this week.

While Sunday’s demonstrations presented a public face for the movement in support of Bolsonaro, a frantic mobilization has been underway for the approval of an “amnesty” bill in the Brazilian Congress.

On Friday, on the eve of the rallies, the media published a draft of the bill that Bolsonaro’s allies are circulating among lawmakers. The content of the proposal is sweeping.

“Amnesty is granted to all those who ... [since] March 2019 ..., have been or are being or, still, may eventually come to be investigated, prosecuted or convicted” for all crimes against democracy and national sovereignty, the text reads.

The measure provides for the shelving of all ongoing cases and investigations into the coup attempt and the cancellation of all sentences imposed. It also entails the suspension of ineligibilities to run for office imposed by the Electoral Court, such as those against Bolsonaro.

The fascists’ project in parliament has just gained the backing of two parties of the supposed “moderate” right, the Progressive Party (PP) and União Brasil, which were part of Lula’s governing base. Last Tuesday, the day the STF trial began, they announced their departure from the PT government and from the ministries they held, and their support for the campaign for an amnesty for the coup plotters.

The different fronts of this fascist counteroffensive are aimed at resuming the coup plans from the point where they left off on January 8, 2023.

That logic was openly announced by Flávio Bolsonaro in an interview in June. Asserting that “amnesty is the honorable way out for everyone,” he threatened “popular” and “international” reactions that “are not under our control” should his father be convicted.

Sketching a scenario in which his father is convicted and receives a pardon from the new president elected in 2026—exactly what Tarcísio Freitas claims he will do—Flávio assumed that the STF will challenge the measure. “It’s a very bad prospect, because we are talking about the possibility and the use of force,” he warned.