“Right wing” Jair Bolsonaro has been elected president of Brazil, which extends a significant shift rightward from the days of Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. In Latin America — and especially Brazil, which is itself distinct from Hispanophone Latin America — “right wing” can mean many things, and it certainly isn’t the same thing as we mean in the US. Laissez-faire economics — even in rhetoric — isn’t necessarily part of the equation.
There does seem to be a distinct lean in favor of the income-and-wealth-producing middle classes with Bolsonaro, and that may be a good thing.
Not surprisingly, then, the media is telling me that Bolsonaro is pretty much the modern incarnation of Hitler, just as they did with Trump. And while I’m hardly a Trump booster, the guy obviously ain’t Hitler, either — or even Mussolini. (Never mind that both those guys heavily pushed their countries in the direction of socialism and central planning...)
In any case, the electorate of Brazil has apparently tired of the status quo which is one of terrible crime and sky-high homicide rates, rampant corruption, and a steady drumbeat for more and more economic regulation and intervention.
While much of Latin America (not Venezuela, of course) is seeing dropping violence coupled with steady economic growth (see Peru, for example, where homicide rates are a small fraction of Brazil’s and where economic growth is far more steady than in Brazil) Brazil appears to spinning its wheels.
For a good take on Bolsonaro from one of our writers, see Brazil-born Alice Salles on “Understanding Brazil’s Donald Trump.”
