As autocrats ascend, gloomy data on democracies' decline

Before being elected president of Brazil in 2018, Jair Bolsonaro was granted seven terms in Congress by voters. Up for reelection in October and facing the first possible ballot box defeat of his career, Bolsonaro has suggested several times over the past year that he would not concede defeat if voters choose his opponent.

“Only God can remove me from the presidential chair,” Bolsonaro said in more than one political rally over the last two years, apparently threatening to defy the very…