MAGA and the Military Regimes: Comparing Authoritarianism in 1970s South America and the United States Today

By the mid-1970s, military dictatorship was the characteristic regime type in South America, military officers having seized power in Brazil in 1964, Argentina in 1966 (and again in 1976), and Chile and Uruguay in 1973. This roundtable will discuss what dictatorship meant—politically, economically, socially, and culturally—in these four countries. The presenters will compare those experiences with conditions in the United States today to highlight similarities and differences between the military-centered autocracy of the South American 1970s and the sharp escalation of civilian, executive-branch authoritarianism in the early months of Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. president. A comparative examination of the circumstances of, and responses to, the establishment of military rule in each of these countries can inform our understanding of the present moment.