Lest all things be held unalterable

Bertolt Brecht’s demand in the prologue to his play The Exception and the Rule has become widely known in Rio de Janeiro over the last couple of years. In the case of Brazil, multiple factors contributed to the progression of the illness until its most serious prognosis, which culminated in the election of Jair Bolsonaro to the highest office in the Republic. The author examines the consolidation of three branches of the Brazilian extreme-right in the past few years: the "libertarians", who preach the notion of a minimal state. On 17 April 2016, many Brazilians watched, on television, the vote on Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment in Brasilia. David Runciman argues that “in most functional democracies, the people almost always limit themselves to the role of spectator the people limit themselves to watch a performance where its role is to applaud or deny applause at the appropriate moments”.