Institutions, Rule of Law, and Civil Rights Deteriorate as Government Doubles Down on Failed Economic Policies.

When Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was impeached in May and removed from office in August, many called it a coup.

The president was not charged with anything that could legitimatelybe called a crime, and the leaders of the impeachment appeared,in taped conversations, to be getting rid of her in order to cut off a corruption investigation in which they and their political allies were implicated.

Others warned that once starting down this road, further degradation of state institutions and the rule of law would follow. And that’s just what has happened, along with some of the political repression that generally accompanies this type of regime change.

The deterioration of democracy, the rule of law and civil rights is what happens when a corrupt elite uses illegitimate regime change to ram through big, regressive, structural…