Meet the Intellectual Founder of Brazil’s Far Right

Editor’s Note: This article is part of our “Democracy Undone” series about the erosion of liberal democracy around the world.

PETERSBURG, Virginia—Talking with Olavo de Carvalho can be an exercise in self-restraint. As I walked into his house for an interview recently, he was sitting behind his desk, his gray hair neatly combed back. More than 100 smoking pipes were lined up on a rack, and thousands of books were stacked on the shelves of his home office alongside at least 20 rifles. He greeted me with a deep frown and wide eyes before pointing at a printout of a recent article I had written and bellowing, “What the fuck is that?”

So began our second meeting.

Sitting across from him, I saw that he had already set up his computer to film our exchange, his laptop camera framing my face. (He records all his interviews with reporters, whom he calls “enemies of the people,” often . These are then his followers, with titles such as “Olavo humiliates journalist.”) His wife, daughter, and a handful of other relatives and