WHAT WE DO WITH WHAT WE'VE GOT.

• Author: Boddiger, David
• Position: EDITOR'S NOTE

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 Trumps 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 Inacio 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...