Open Talk of a Military Coup Unsettles Brazil

"Many believe that the generals cleansed the nation of graft. In reality, as a government truth commission showed in 2014, this perception only reflected the regime’s censorship of the press and control of the judiciary. Under the dictatorship, kickbacks lubricated Brazil’s political system just as they always had.

Still, the myth survives, with dangerous implications. Its current embodiment is a soldier-turned-congressman, Jair Bolsonaro, who has been polling in second place for the 2018 Presidential election. When I spoke to him last year, he told me, “The military period was a time of glory for Brazil, when criminals were criminals, he who worked was recognized for it, and even in soccer we didn’t go through the embarrassment we do today, if you look at Germany’s 7–1”—a winking reference to Brazil’s epic semifinal loss at the 2014 World Cup. Bolsonaro once told a female lawmaker, “I won’t rape you because you don’t deserve it.” He has called the Afro-Brazilian communities known as quilombos “worthless even for procreating.” Of the organizers of an L.G.B.T.Q. art show, he said, “Tem que fuzilar os autores dessa exposição”—they should be lined up and shot. His solution to Brazil’s crime problem is to “give police free rein to kill.” He has cited Donald Trump as a political role model."

read article by ALEX QUADROS