The Most Misogynistic, Hateful Elected Official in the Democratic World: Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro

"After do Rosário left the podium, Jair Bolsonaro – a right-wing Congressman since 1990 who served in the military during the dictatorship and is still an ardent defender of it –  stood to speak. He began by immediately demanding that do Rosário, who was preparing to leave the chamber, remain to hear him, yelling: “No, Maria do Rosário, don’t leave! Stay here, Maria do Rosário. Stay!” Referencing her statements about the well-documented use of rape by the military dictatorship against female opponents, he bellowed: “I would not rape you. You don’t merit that.” The meaning was clear, particularly in the original Portuguese: while some women are good enough to be so blessed, do Rosário wasn’t even good enough to deserve his rape.

It’s shocking and repulsive enough to have a woman be told – in a major nation’s Congress where she serves – that she’s not worth raping. What makes it even more sickening is that this is the second time Bolsonaro has said this to her. In her first year serving in the Congress, he screamed at her in a crowded hallway, telling her that she didn’t even merit being raped by him. He then called her a “slut” (vagabunda). And that time, for good measure, he also pushed her, then told her to “cry! go cry” – all in front of journalists who filmed the entire episode:

In one sense, Bolsonaro is the most extreme and repellent face of a resurgent, evangelical-driven right-wing attempt to drag the country backwards by decades, in exactly the opposite direction most other civilized countries are headed. Despite the country’s notorious record of violent abuse by police, he said expressly that he “defends torture” for drug dealers and kidnappers, who “have no human rights.” The Brazil-based journalist Andrew Downie, detailing this week’s incident, aptly describes Bolsonaro as “a hateful man who perhaps more than any other person exemplifies the backward side of Brazil that is still a huge and tragically worrying presence in this great nation.”"

read the article by Glenn Greenwald​ and Andrew Fishman

The Most Misogynistic, Hateful Elected Official in the Democratic World: Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro: