By Brady Kiesling
At 1730 on Thursday, 11 September I heard from our hotel room in Curitiba, Brazil, what sounded like machine-gun fire, punctuated by heavier booms. My first thought, given the treason trial under way, was that Bolsonaro's followers were preempting the verdict by staging a coup. Parana state governor Ratinho ("little rat", a name said to track perfectly with his moral code) was one of the ex-president's supporters. But the explosions stopped after a minute or so. Traffic outside the window moved normally. The capybaras in the park below continued to radiate a calm, implacable wisdom.
My nephew-in-law reassured me afterwards that the noise was happy fireworks triggered by the announcement of Bolsonaro's 4-1 conviction by the Supreme Federal Tribunal. Bolsonaro has now been sentenced to 27 years in jail for having plotting a coup to overturn the election results, assassinate President Lula, and reinstall himself in power.
We should all aspire to live in countries that listen to fireworks rather than gunshots.
Charlie Kirk did not deserve to die. His racist, sexist, totalitarian views were odious to those of us brought up with the conventional American idealism of the 1970s, but they fall well within the limits of constitutionally protected political discourse. In an America governed by the Constitution and the laws, one in which the courts and Congress act as a check on the executive, one where the president understands and respects his oath to uphold the law, Charlie Kirk was just one voice among many. Let him enrich himself by pandering to white supremacist bullies and to the billionaires a few of those bullies grew up to be. Fear of the police and fear of society's contempt, as well as general sluggishness, keep 99.9 percent of those bullies typing harmlessly at their laptops rather than murdering trans activists or Democratic legislators. Now, however, is a moment in America where the bullies are coming to believe they have nothing to be afraid of.
Thanks to Donald Trump, a growing number of Americans, including me, have lost their faith that America is a country governed by law. Over the past nine months, the Republican majority in Congress and six of the nine members of the Supreme Court have cooperated with Trump to destroy that faith. By explicitly endorsing war crimes and pardoning war criminals, by sending armed troops into U.S. cities against the will of their state governors and in violation of federal law, by trampling on states' rights generally, by ignoring laws passed by Congress, by politicizing the FBI and intelligence community, Trump has made clear his contempt for our democratic institutions. The Supreme Court does not contradict Trump when he claims its rulings have placed him above the laws. His Attorney General acts instead as his corporate lawyer, refusing to prosecute blatant crimes committed by Trump loyalists against the public interest.
What civic morality is Trump offering as a substitute for the rule of law? Vanity and vindictiveness, coupled to bottomless greed and cynicism. His contribution to making genocide safe and legal for Israel does not compensate ordinary Americans for the loss of constitutional protection to their houses and persons. As proved by streets flooded with masked thugs newly hired by ICE, there seems to be no public institution left in America both willing and able to hold Trump to his oath of office.
When public institutions betray our instinct for justice, private citizens step up, usually with horrific results. I wrote a long book about 17N, a Greek far-left terrorist group that killed politicians, diplomats, and businessmen over a 27-year period. 17N earned its claim on the popular imagination by killing a torturer from the military dictatorship after the new Greek democracy had failed to punish him. Once the justice provided by the state met the public's aspirations, Greek domestic political violence became negligible again.
In shoving open the door to political violence, Trump and his team have committed a horrific blunder as well as a number of crimes. The murder of Charlie Kirk in Utah is one symptom of what happens when people who care deeply about politics, a small but dangerous minority of the population, lose their faith that the duty to defend core American values will be upheld by those charged by the Constitution with doing so.
America glorifies violence and insists on keeping it trivially easy. 17N had to scavenge for usable weapons by stealing them from a police station. In America, anyone who undervalues their own life can effortlessly find the means to take a dozen other lives, linking their mental illness to a trivial cause or no cause at all. What decent person will dare fulfill the responsibilities of elected office now that Trump has told every lunatic in the country that the gloves are off?
Back to Brazil. Trump called the Bolsonaro trial a "witch hunt", but the evidence presented in court was damning. It included a detailed paper trail left by the conspirators, one much more murderous (except toward VP Pence and the Capitol Police) than that presented at Trump's impeachment. Trump and Rubio have now threatened to retaliate against Brazil for punishing their friend Bolsonaro.
Loyalty to living friends is not a Trump characteristic, so we must look for a different reason. Brazil's crime has been to respect the rule of law. If the rule of law prevails in America, as it still might, Trump and his followers will end up in jail. Trump will therefore side instinctively with dictators, no matter how little their interests coincide with America's.
To become a U.S. foreign service officer, I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. Millions of other Americans have sworn that oath, and many of them still feel bound by it even decades after their service has ended.
Dante reserved the deepest circle of Hell for oath-breakers. It is not the job of the public to send oath-breakers to Hell. When we try, the results are catastrophic for all concerned. It is our job, however, to remind Trump's aspiring storm troopers on every occasion that, having sworn an oath to the Constitution, Hell is where they are bound if they execute illegal orders issued by their current chief executive.
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Brady Kiesling is a former US Foreign Service officer, who resigned in protest over the US invasion of Iraq, 2003. He is also Democrats Abroad Greece Athens chapter Rep (2025-26) Chair (2023-24), Secretary (2010-12), Counsel (2021-23); co-founder of HELADA, the Hellenic American Democratic Association; and author of “Diplomacy Lessons,” “Greek Urban Warriors,” and the “ToposText.org” app and web site.