Jair Bol­so­na­ro is an outspo­ken advo­ca­te of Brazil’s mili­ta­ry dic­ta­tor­ship and is well kno­wn for his seve­ral attacks again­st women, black peo­ple, refu­gees and the LGBT community.

Some of his sta­te­men­ts inclu­de: «She doesn’t deser­ve to be raped becau­se she’s very ugly» – which he addres­sed to the lef­ti­st depu­ty Maria do Rosa­rio in Decem­ber 2014; «The dictatorship’s mista­ke was to tor­tu­re but not kill» – as he clai­med during an inter­view with Jovem Pan radio sta­tion in June 2016; «I would be inca­pa­ble of loving a homo­se­xual son. I’m not going to be a hypo­cri­te: I’d rather my son died in an acci­dent than sho­wed up with some blo­ke with a mou­sta­che» – as he affir­med in an inter­view with Play­boy Maga­zi­ne in June 2011.

Bolsonaro became prominent in the Brazilian political scene asserting his authoritarian view.

He is a strong­man in the eyes of the Bra­zi­lian peo­ple, who have suf­fe­red throu­gh a period of poli­ti­cal uncer­tain­ty and mistru­st in their lea­ders: they have just come off the impea­ch­ment of the for­mer pre­si­dent, Dil­ma Rous­seff, have suf­fe­red the eco­no­mic deep crash of 2015–2016 and have to deal with more than 60000 mur­ders per year.

What tends to hap­pen after the vic­to­ry of extre­mi­st lea­ders? Poli­ti­cal com­men­ta­tors do their best to con­vin­ce their audien­ces that coun­ter­ba­lan­ce powers will miti­ga­te the most fana­tic beliefs. When inter­viewed by fox news, Bra­zil ambas­sa­dor to USA Ser­gio Ama­ral insi­sted on this point under­ly­ing that «sin­ce the second ground of the elec­tion pre­si­dent elect was very mode­ra­te».

How can a man who pro­noun­ced such radi­cal sta­te­men­ts be tru­ly mode­ra­te? Indeed, why does he have to be mode­ra­te if this radi­cal poli­cy gran­ted him the pre­si­den­cy in the fir­st place?

Let us con­si­der what hap­pe­ned when con­tem­po­ra­ry poli­ti­cians who pre­sen­ted them­sel­ves as radi­cals actual­ly obtai­ned a posi­tion of power:

• Pre­si­dent of the Phi­lip­pi­nes Rodri­go Duter­te during his elec­tion cam­pai­gn also made some con­tro­ver­sial decla­ra­tions such as «Hitler mas­sa­cred 3 mil­lion Jews… There’s 3 mil­lion drug addic­ts. The­re are. I’d be hap­py to slaughter them.» He then demon­stra­ted his autho­ri­ta­rian ten­den­cies by orde­ring Phi­lip­pi­nes’ poli­ce for­ces to kill anyo­ne they belie­ved to be con­nec­ted to the drugs tra­de.  His “war on drugs” deter­mi­ned the death of 7,000 peo­ple in Phi­lip­pi­nes bet­ween July 2016 and Janua­ry 2017.
• Ita­lian mini­ster of inte­rior Mat­teo Sal­vi­ni has always had extre­mi­st and popu­li­stic opi­nions on immi­gra­tion: he said, in an inter­view in 2017, that the­re was a need of a «Mass clean­sing, street by street, quar­ter by quar­ter» and then, refer­ring to the Diciot­ti issue, that: «No one will land in Ita­ly without my autho­ri­za­tion». Thanks to the­se very claims his par­ty is now the most popu­lar in Ita­ly. In June he went as far as pro­po­sing a new cen­sus of the mem­bers of the Rom com­mu­ni­ty whi­le sug­ge­sting that all non-Ita­lian Roms should be expel­led from the country.
• Final­ly, Pre­si­dent Trump made the con­struc­tion of an anti-immi­gran­ts wall on the Mexi­co bor­der one of the main poin­ts of his pre­si­den­tial cam­pai­gn. It is true he didn’t build this wall yet, but this doesn’t mean he aban­do­ned his radi­cal poli­cy. In fact, he is now try­ing to end the birth-right citizenship.

May­be Bol­so­na­ro will real­ly beco­me mode­ra­te and chan­ge his ideas. But for now let us reflect upon the­se exam­ples and see what tru­ly hap­pens in con­tem­po­ra­ry politics.

Fede­ri­co Sarchiapone

Stu­den­te di giu­ri­spru­den­za, appas­sio­na­to di poli­ti­ca e del­le sue riper­cus­sio­ni sul dirit­to. Amo l’i­ta­lia­ni­tà ma cer­co di ave­re una visio­ne cosmopolita.