James Willoughby

Is Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro really the ‘Trump of the Tropics’?

Jair Bolsonaro’s victory in Brazil’s presidential election has stoked fears around the world that ‘fascism’ is on the rise. In Brazil, of course, that word has a particular resonance. The former army captain sees the years of military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985 as benign ones. The only mistake the generals made, he has said, was in not killing enough dissidents—another 30,000 would have done the trick. His pick for vice-president thinks that the country should be back under martial law, and repeats the line whenever he is invited to withdraw it.

Bolsonaro has been dubbed the ‘Trump of the Tropics’, a moniker he seems happy to accept. Both men are disrupters. Both like to be seen dealing with a strong right arm and appeal to an angry base. Like Trump, Bolsonaro has successfully cast himself as a political outsider (in spite of having held a seat in congress for twenty-nine years).

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