"Something Better": The Wall Street Journal Keeping It Fashy

As fascism and protofascism continue to rise around the world, Brazil, the 4th largest democracy, now stands right on the brink of becoming the latest straight-up casualty. In the first round of voting on 7 Oct., proto-Nazi Jair Bolsonaro, often called "the Brazilian Trump," came within a hair's breadth of winning the Brazilian presidency outright. Stopping him now is going to be very difficult. The Wall Street Journal has just offered an approving editorial on Bolsonaro. Though appalling, longtime observers of the paper won't really be surprised by this. Still, for the neophyte, comparing the real Bolsonaro to the version the Journal's editors have just offered their readers offers an eye-opening glimpse of the ethos of the largest circulation conservative newspaper in the U.S..

Jair Bolsonaro

Historian and fascism expert Federico Finchelstein has just written a piece in Foreign Policy, "Jair Bolsonaro's Model Isn't Burlusconi. It's Goebbels." It offers a nice, compact profile:

"[Bolsonaro] combines promises of austerity measures with prophesies of violence. His campaign is a mix of racism, misogyny, and extreme law and order positions.

"He wants criminals to be summarily shot rather than face trial. He presents indigenous people as 'parasites' and also advocates for discriminatory, eugenically devised forms of birth control. Bolsonaro has warned about the danger posed by refugees from Haiti, Africa, and the Middle East, calling them 'the scum of humanity' and even argued that the army should take care of them.

"He regularly makes racist and misogynistic statements. For example, he accused Afro-Brazilians of being obese and lazy[1] and defended physically punishing children to try to prevent them from being gay. He has equated homosexuality with pedophilia and told a representative in the Brazilian National Congress, 'I wouldn't rape you because you do not deserve it."

Finchelstein notes that insofar as Bolsonaro hasn't rhetorically called for an end to democracy, he isn't quite at full Nazi stage yet:

"However, things could change quickly if he gains power. Recently, Bolsonaro argued that he would never accept defeat in the election and suggested that the army might agree with his view. This is a clear threat to democracy.

"He implied the possibility of a coup. He endorses the legacy of Latin American dictatorships and their dirty wars and is an admirer of Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet and other strongmen.

"And like the Argentine Dirty War generals of the 1970s and Adolf Hitler himself, Bolsonaro sees no legitimacy in the opposition, which for him represents tyrannical powers. He said last month that his political opponents, members of the Workers' Party, should be executed."

Bolsonaro is openly nostalgic for the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 (he was an army captain then)[2] and openly indulges in such political murder fantasies:

"Bolsonaro famously declared in 1999 that the Brazilian dictatorship also 'should have killed 30,000 persons, starting with Congress as well as with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso [then the president of Brazil].'"

From Buzzfeed:

"'I am in favor of a dictatorship,' he said in a speech in 1993. 'We will never resolve serious national problems with this irresponsible democracy.'

"In 2015, he was quoted as saying the military rule of Brazil was 'glorious.' He's also said that if he ever became president he would stage a military coup on his first day."

Vox:

"In 2016, Bolsonaro voted to impeach then-President Dilma Rousseff, and indicated he did so in honor of the then-deceased chief of the secret police in Sao Paulo, who oversaw the torture of hundreds under military rule. It was a disturbing act, as Rousseff herself had been imprisoned [Editorial note: and tortured] by the dictatorship.

"For his presidential run, Bolsonaro chose a retired military general as his running mate who’s also made disconcerting statements about military power, including that the return of military rule in Brazil could be justified under some circumstances."

Progressive columnist Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Brazil, has called Bolsonaro "the most misogynistic, hateful elected official in the democratic world." His account of the reactionary pol is equally grim:

"[Bolsonaro's] primary solution to the nation’s crime epidemic is to unleash the military and police into the nation’s slums and give them what he calls 'carte blanche' to indiscriminately murder anyone they suspect to be criminals, acknowledging many innocents will die in the process. He has criticized monsters such as Chile's Pinochet and Peru's Fujimori--for not slaughtering more domestic opponents. He has advocated that mainstream Brazilian politicians be killed. He wants to chemically castrate sex offenders. In all respects, the hideous Brazilian military dictatorship that took over Brazil and ruled it for 21 years--torturing and summarily executing dissidents, with the support of the US and UK in the name of fighting Communists--is his model of governance."

This is the creature about whom the Wall Street Journal editors have just written that approving--even adoring--editorial. Under the headline--no kidding--"Brazilian Swamp Drainer," the Journal editors present Bolsonaro as merely a "conservative presidential candidate." Here's how they summarize him:

"Mr. Bolsonaro, who has spent 27 years in Congress, is best understood as a conservative populist who promises to make Brazil great for the first time. The 63-year-old is running on traditional values and often says politically incorrect things about identity politics that inflame his opponents. Yet he has attracted support from the middle class by pledging to reduce corruption, crack down on Brazil’s rampant crime and liberate entrepreneurs from government control."

To offer this characterization, the editors decline to share with their readers any of the appalling facts outlined above. Of Bosonaro's call to free up police to indiscriminately murder suspected criminals,

"On crime he has promised to restore a police presence in urban and rural areas that have become lawless."

The editors dismiss the notion that Bolsonaro is any sort of threat to democracy with a single line, insisting simply that "he isn’t proposing to change the constitution, which constrains the military at home." Well, that certainly settles that, doesn't it? Clearly uncomfortable with this line of thought, the piece immediately proceeds to attack Bolsonaro's Worker's Party opponent Fernando Haddad as working "from the Hugo Chavez playbook."

The editorial mocks "global progressives," who, is says, "are having an anxiety attack" over Bolsonaro's near-win.

"After years of corruption and recession, apparently millions of Brazilians think an outsider is exactly what the country needs. Maybe they know more than the world’s scolds."

Its conclusion:

"After so much political turmoil and corruption, it’s hardly surprising that Brazilians are responding to a candidate who promises something better."

The Wall Street Journal has a decades-long history of backing fascist movements and dictatorships, acting, over the years, as apologists and propagandists for even the worst of the lot, and it isn't surprising that its editors think of such horror shows as "something better." But it is something to keep in mind.

--j.

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[1] From NPR (30 July, 2018): "Last year, he caused an outcry by declaring that in his view the inhabitants of Afro-Brazilian communities known as quilombos are 'not even good for breeding any more.'"

[2] In the Summer, he told NPR that dictatorship was "a very good" time for Brazil.