>>36018
PSD were centrists, they weren't all that enthusiastic about Goulart's radicalism. They were also close to power and focused on keeping it, much like present centrists who form the largest bloc in Congress and side with any government, left or right. When the situation changed, with the right having brute force and almost full support in the middle and upper classes (and in time, the entire population), PSD was forced to pick a side and its priorities were clear, power above all else. It's not like it was an alien situation; the party's core were the governors named by Vargas during his dictatorial rule. Vargas would later become a PTB president but his 1937-45 autocracy wasn't like the 1964 PTB; as a dictator he had sought America's favor and directed all his corporatism to urban workers, never thinking of land reform and the like. The 1964-85 military administration was then closer to the former PSD than to the former UDN in several aspects, such as a fondness for public works and letting the country fall into inflation.