We can console ourselves in part: while in Italy the political climate is degenerating and a deputy prime minister is holding press conferences on the beach insulting the journalists present, Brazil is not doing any better. Since the end of 2018 he has ruled in the most populated and economically important country in South America Jair Bolsonaro, a "friend" of Matteo Salvini, or at least an exponent of the same basic idea of politics: sovereignty, national-populism and even right-wing extremism, given the military past of the new Brazilian president and the profile of some characters who make up his government (some of whom are revisionists about the dictatorship that ended in the 80s). Tracing the institutional moment that Brazil is going through is Andrea Torrente, an Italian journalist who has lived in the green-gold country for over ten years (between San Paolo and Curitiba), editor and collaborator of various local newspapers: “Current photography, however, shows a country in a deep political and judicial crisis, as well as economic given that signs of recovery after the recession of recent years are still timid”, writes Torrente on his blog Escape to Brazil, followed by more than 8.000 people on Facebook.
According to what the Italian journalist writes, "the honeymoon of the new government, which took office on January XNUMXst, has not yet ended, but something starts to creak. On the other hand, since taking office in the Planalto palace, the official residence of the president, Jair Bolsonaro and his government team have continued to target everyone and everything, as if last year's tough electoral campaign had not yet ended. concluded". The strategy, despite its differences, therefore appears very similar to those adopted by Donald Trump in the United States and by Matteo Salvini in Italy: "Not a day goes by without Bolsonaro and his ministers shoot zero on Twitter not only to political opponents, but also to institutions, from congresses to public bodies, via journalists. All seasoned with fake news and conspiracy theories.
In short, free words, and we too know something about it in Italy, and above all members of the majority who also occupy - with insistence and verbal violence - the "media" spaces that would belong to the opposition. Ending, at least this would be happening in Italy, to increase their consensus despite the undeniable flop of their political action. Former Army Captain, Bolsonaro, as we know, is nostalgic for the military dictatorship, one of the darkest periods in Brazilian history which lasted from 64 to 85. “In recent days – writes Torrente – however, he seems to have once again crossed the line of political confrontation, and of decency, when, during a live Facebook at the barbershop, has launched a harsh attack on the president of the Brazilian Bar Association, Felipe Santa Cruz. While cutting his hair, Bolsonaro said he had information about the death of Felipe's father, Fernando, a desaparecido from the military regime. According to Bolsonaro, Fernando was killed by a leftist paramilitary group."
And this is not the only example of revisionism or fake news spread by the institutional apparatus itself: on the environmental emergency, for example, the declarations of the ministers range from "Global warming doesn't exist" to the "data on the deforestation of the Amazon are false". Not to mention the severed heads and parentopolis: Bolsonaro's latest headshot is the outright dismissal of the director of INPE (National Institute of Space Research), an institution that is a flagship of the Ministry of Science and Technology , only because the president does not believe the data showing a sharp increase in the destruction of the Amazon forest. At the same time Bolsonaro has already announced that he will appoint his 35-year-old son Eduardo as ambassador to the United States.
