Democracy Bedevils Brazil's Bolsonaro

"More than a nostalgia for autocracy, Bolsonaro’s penchant for decrees belies a political disability. He spent 28 years on congress’s back bench, wooing favored constituencies by championing small-bore bills, most of which languished in committee. He has brought the same modus operandi to Brazil’s highest office, flogging pet causes—open carry, home schooling and abolishing speed traps—as if they were national priorities. “His is a typical lower tier lawmaker’s agenda,” said Getulio Vargas Foundation political Octavio Amorim Neto. “It’s what Bolsonaro knows how to do well and it spares him from squandering political capital on unpopular measures.”

The profligate pension system?  Brazil’s regressive tax system? Foreign trade? The anticorruption bill? Let the wonks in Brasilia—Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina da Costa Dias and Justice Minister Sergio Moro—struggle with those electorally toxic items before the mutinous legislature and demanding international customers."

MORE IN THE ARTICLE BY Mac Margolis​

Democracy Bedevils Brazil's Bolsonaro - Bloomberg