'A second Trump': Bolsonaro's offensive rhetoric adds to Brazil's discomfort

[Judi Lynn]

Supporters say his tendency to speak freely is sincere – but detractors call it a PR disaster

Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent
Mon 19 Aug 2019 00.00 EDT

He parleyed his way to Brazil’s presidency with a vote-winning barrage of scaremongering and bombast.

But eight months into Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right tenure, there is growing discomfort over the president’s inability – or refusal – to mind his mouth, and the impact this is having on Brazil’s place in the world.

“The president has become a risk for the country,” the broadsheet O Globo pronounced this week in an editorial lamenting how Bolsonaro’s “verbal incontinence” was costing Brazil international friends.

Brazil’s president has long been notorious for his hateful and homophobic declarations – he once proclaimed that he would prefer a dead son to a gay one. But even by Bolsonaro’s loquacious standards, recent weeks have been notable.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/19/bolsonaro-offensive-rhetoric-brazil

[secondwind]

1. It's also costing the planet. The Amazon is being decimated

at an alarming rate.