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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHe dismissed COVID-19 as "hysteria," "a small cold" and a fake crisis created by his opponents.
Trump? No, but its another right-wing autocrat recently coached by the monster Steve Bannon Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Interesting how Bolsonaros handling of the crisis parallels Trumps: first, outright dismissal and a minimizing of the threat; then, blaming political opponents for creating a conspiracy to bring him down; and finally, acknowledging the threat, but only in the context of political expediency.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-pandemic-political-shakeup-brazil-donald-trump_n_5e870d0cc5b6a9491834d496
Huffington Post
By Sasha Belenky
April 3, 2020
In an address to the nation on Tuesday night, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro finally seemed to acknowledge the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, calling it the biggest challenge of our generation.
For weeks, Bolsonaro has downplayed the crisis, dismissing it as panic and hysteria, a small cold, a media trick, and a fake emergency manufactured by his political opponents. On Sunday, he visited bustling shopping centers and said businesses should remain open, contrary to guidance from the Ministry of Health.
On Tuesday, however, his tone softened. This time, instead of arguing to protect the economy, he spoke of saving lives without leaving jobs behind.
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We are going to fulfill this mission while taking care of peoples health, Bolsonaro said. The virus is a reality.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil topped 8,000 on Friday, and 327 people have died. Around the world, more than 1 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, although the real number of cases is believed to be much higher.
Sources tell HuffPost Brazil, however, that Bolsonaros shift in rhetoric was motivated more by political considerations than by science. Bolsonaro has found himself without support, not only in the political class something he has never tried to cultivate, and in fact has actively rejected but also within his own government. Bolsonaro is feeling fragile in his position, a source close to the president said.
For the past two weeks, Brazilians isolating themselves at home have taken to their windows and balconies nightly to bang pots and pans in protest and shout Bolsonaro out!
He has demonstrated that he is unfit to be president, Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida, a political scientist at the University of São Paulo, told The New York Times. He remains in power for one very simple reason: No one wants to create a political crisis to oust him in the midst of a health emergency.
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sdfernando
(4,947 posts)wasn't he in Italy???
VOX
(22,976 posts)and the current Brazilian president sent his henchmen here to the U.S. for coaching with Bannon, whos now is back in the U.S. A quick bit of googling revealed this insanity, which is right in keeping with Trumpism:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5c8fb5a1e4b0d50544fe2318/amp
Brazil Presidents U.S. Visit Kicks Off With Steve Bannon-Sponsored Paranoia Fest
At the Trump hotel event, anti-globalist advocates pushed for even greater influence over Jair Bolsonaro's government.
Huffington Post
By Travis Waldron
03/18/2019
TRUMP INTERNATIONAL HOTEL, Washington ― A little after 8 p.m. Saturday night, Olavo de Carvalho emerged from the bowels of President Donald Trumps D.C. hotel to speak to reporters. The author and polemicist was wearing the sort of tweed suit fancied by those who regard themselves as philosophers.
Carvalho, who is the sort of guy who quotes Plato to reporters, was at the Trump International as the guest of honor at an event organized by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, another supposed master of the classics, which was meant to act as a curtain-raiser for far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaros first official visit to the United States.
Bannon and Carvalho have a lot in common. Carvalho, whom Americas Quarterly dubbed the guru behind Bolsonaros rise, calls himself an anti-globalist. He writes and rants against cultural Marxism and climate change, immigrants and Islam; he has said that the United Nations controls all governments around the world and that Pepsi sweetens its sodas with aborted fetuses. His influence on Brazils president has earned him the moniker Bolsonaros Bannon, thanks to the new leaders repeated remarks that Carvalho inspired his own (admittedly less academic) racism, sexism, homophobia and general hysteria.
That the visit kicked off at an anti-globalist soiree that attracted such luminaries as right-wing former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka baffled officials in both the U.S. and Brazilian governments, according to the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo. The White House, the paper wrote, cant understand Bolsonaros obsession with figures like Bannon and Carvalho.
In fact, the event merely served as further evidence that inside Bolsonaros tenuous and already splintered governing coalition ― composed of military men, neoliberal economists, evangelicals and Carvalho acolytes ― the anti-globalist wing is attempting to exert more power and influence over the president than anyone else.
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Was hoping he got stuck in Italy and possibly became a statistic.
Initech
(100,107 posts)The next president needs to throw his ass in jail. Along with Jared Kushner.
VOX
(22,976 posts)And Ill lay odds that hes working with 45 on his re-election bid.
Psychopathic freaks like Bannon and Kushner dont just go away. They are like a deadly virus themselves.
Prison time is too good for them, but Id settle for it.
Cha
(297,774 posts)all over the world.