Almost five years ago I wrote about the wave of protests then sweeping Brazil. I argued that because people were protesting everything, they were ultimately protesting nothing.

Three years ago, Brazilians found a sense of direction, and a new wave of protests ended with the ousting of the corrupt and incompetent government of Dilma Rousseff. But then things got worse (again), and now Brazil finds itself back in dire straits.

The anti-corruption campaign, nicknamed Lava Jato (Car wash), destroyed politics in Brazil, with the happy support of some of the country’s most important media outlets. On the one hand, several “bad guys” were justifiably investigated, prosecuted, and condemned, former President Lula being the best example. On the other, Lava Jato essentially told Brazilians that all politicians are the same: Left to their own devices, they would legislate for their own benefit and perpetuate corruption, bad management, inequality—you name it. This effectively allowed Lula and his party to reestablish themselves after being kicked out. After all, if every politician is the same, why was Lula the only one who got jailed? At least when he was in charge things were running better. Very few realize that it was Lula’s policies that brought Brazil to its worst recession in more than a generation and severely compromised the prospects of recovery (due mainly, but not only, to a monstrously large fiscal deficit). A widespread sense of illegitimacy made it difficult to distinguish between various candidates—and that in turn made it easier for demagogues to capture public support. Yes, we’re corrupt, we’re incompetent, we’re selfish, Lula’s cronies seemed to say. But have you seen the other guy?

There are institutional problems as well. Brazil’s system of government is notoriously dysfunctional: The President is elected by a majority vote and faces a House of Deputies chosen by a very complex system of proportional representation that guarantees that political parties will be weak and members of Parliament will be un-representative. Since the President needs a strong majority to approve almost any piece of meaningful legislation, he or she will immediately try to “buy” representatives by whatever means available.

And since Brazilians today believe that the most pressing problem in the country is corruption, they want to see the system “cleansed” of corrupt politicians. This is a naive and dangerous trap. Defenestrating bad actors will not change the electoral laws that make reform difficult, or revivify weak and disintegrated parties who appropriate public funds to stay afloat. Nor will it arrest the ongoing politicization of Brazil’s Supreme Courts—a phenomenon known in Brazil as the “judicialization of politics”—because that politicization emerged in response to legislative impotence. Supreme Court judges now decide important questions on the basis of what they call “public outcry.” At least since Dilma Rousseff’s ousting, judges have been issuing contradictory votes on crucial constitutional issues. The general sense in the country is that there’s an acute lack of juridical reason and coherence, which might explain why the new President of the Supreme Court started his two-year mandate on September 13 by appointing the former Army chief of staff as a special adviser—all in the name of stability and predictability.

Fed up with politics, with politicians, and with the worst recession in living memory, Brazilians are turning against the establishment. That turn has manifested in two ways: in a sense of revulsion directed at the PT or Worker’s Party, whose policies are associated with identity politics and “leftism”; and in a belief that an authoritarian and hitherto obscure politician, former Army Captain Jair Bolsonaro, can magically solve the nation’s problems, starting with corruption. Bolsonaro sees himself as a kind of “Brazilian Trump,” at least in the sense that he is challenging conventional political wisdom by making outrageous statements and taking on media empires. Like Trump, Bolsonaro says he is a victim of a biased media establishment, which in Bolsonaro’s view is tied to elite interests and a “globalist” agenda. I doubt most Brazilians understand exactly what “globalism” means, but Bolsonaro’s cleaver of social media has helped to propel him to the top of the polls in Monday’s general election, despite stiff opposition from the Brazilian elite. That means round two will be between Bolsonaro and Fernando Haddad, with the former commanding a steep lead over the latter.

Is Bolsonaro a threat to democratic institutions? Is his obsessive endorsement of military dictatorships from the 1970s and 1980s a taste of what is to come if he wins the elections? I do not think the insurgent candidate will be the cause of democratic decay. He’s better understood as a symptom of it. Brazil’s dysfunctional politics are already undemocratic; political parties are (with good reason) despised. The press, particularly the mainstream media, has experienced a devastating loss in credibility and standing. Violence is widespread, and fear explains much of the former Army captain’s popularity.

Will all this lead to some sort of military regime, or to control of the civilian regime by generals? Bolsonaro’s ideas are essentially a confused blend of the Chicago Boys’ fiscal hawkishness coupled with a Trump-like disdain for identity politics, plus the usual populist rhetoric about rooting out corruption—which, in Brazil’s dysfunctional political system is a recipe for more turbulence and instability. In short, Brazil under Bolsonaro does not run the risk of devolving into authoritarianism so much as prolonging an already long period of stagnation.

There is no doubt that the elements of polarization and “cultural war” familiar to Americans are already in place in Brazil. The next President, whether it’s Bolsonaro or Haddad, will need a superhuman ability to juggle several different constituencies that all stand to suffer under the necessary fiscal adjustment, a task made all the more daunting by the regionalization and subdivisions of different interests. Moreover, Brazilians have showed a remarkable degree of complacency in the face of horrible crime rates and unheard of levels of corruption, and they have embraced leftist “solutions” to problems like wealth inequality—despite the obvious fact that fiscal irresponsibility will only make things worse. Now, faced with very difficult choices, they find themselves confronted with a choice between the sure path to disaster (Lula’s way) or the uncertain path of popular discontent. Though they don’t yet realize it, Brazilians are protesting against themselves.