History UsefulNotes / JairBolsonaro

Jair Messias Bolsonaro (born 21 March 1955) was the 38th President of UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}} and a retired [[UsefulNotes/BraziliansWithBazookas Brazilian Army]] military captain. Controversial is the ''mildest'' way anyone can describe him as his public image has always been associated with controversy in one way or another. He became known when he publicly criticized the army for the low wages of its members, which got him into court-martial though he received a lot of support from his peers. He entered politics shortly afterwards and got into the spotlight once again in 1998 when he publicly praised the UsefulNotes/BrazilianMilitaryRegime and UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet's rule over Chile, particularly regarding the Brazilian dictatorship as a "[[GoodOldWays glorious period]]" in their country's history, and their greatest mistake was that "they didn't kill enough". Needless to say, he drew a lot of condemnation from the public and human rights activists due to the extremely authoritarian nature of these regimes, especially in light of being still fresh in people's memories at the time (the former ended in 1985 while the latter ended in 1990).

For many decades, Bolsonaro was considered a radical by others due to his outrageous statements condemning [[MalignedMixedMarriage interracial couples]], [[StayInTheKitchen women]] and [[HeteronormativeCrusader LGBT rights]], while [[DayOfTheJackboot favoring the military dictatorship]], [[TortureAlwaysWorks advocating for torture]], the death penalty and nuclear weapons development, and many, ''many'' other horrors. It would be hard to imagine someone like him being even considered as president, but his appeal among the public grew following a very turbulent time in TheNewTens that saw the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party) in control being involved in a never-ending series of corruption scandals and president Dilma Rouseff being impeached (though depending on who you ask, she was [[InsistentTerminology subjected to a coup]]) and replaced by her Vice-President Michel Temer.

In the following presidential election in 2018, Bolsonaro ran as a candidate, emulating a similar platform as UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump by presenting himself as an "outsider" who would defy the establishment. Just like Trump, many were skeptical of his chances of actually winning in no small part due to the most likely candidate to win being PT's representative Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, who also served as President for two terms in 2002-2006 and 2006-2010 and ironically shares some similarities with Bolsonaro: Lula is a populist (albeit a [[NotSoSimilar left-leaning one]]) who is fairly divisive on his own and also ran as an outsider during his previous presidential campaigns against the established status quo of the time.[[note]]Lula in fact had run three previous times before winning the 2002 elections (in 1989, 1994 and 1998).[[/note]] The game was changed when Lula was barred from running due to (widely questioned) corruption charges and replaced with his running mate, former education minister Fernando Haddad. Not helping matters was the attempt on Bolsonaro's while campaigning, where a guy [[AssassinationAttempt stabbed him with a knife]], requiring him to be hospitalized. Bolsonaro won against Haddad the two election rounds as a result.

Bolsonaro built his campaign on socially conservative, economically liberal policies: he supports the idea of smaller government and free market, while promising to crack down hard on crime and preserve Christian values. His gun ownership advocacy is one of his trademarks, but proved to be extremely polarizing, with a little more than half of Brazilians disapproving of it, with the other half strongly agreeing with his viewpoint that Brazil, as a country that suffers from extremely high criminality rates, needs to arm citizens to fight against thugs, stating that drug dealers have access to automatic and high-caliber weapons while innocents have no means to defend themselves and argues that they should be able to "level the game". He has been very critical of "[[PoliticalCorrectnessIsEvil Cultural Marxism]]" and condemned the UsefulNotes/EuropeanUnion as well as Communist regimes like UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}} and UsefulNotes/{{Venezuela}} for promoting it, and dismissed secularism as "nonsense", viewing Brazil as a [[TheTheocracy Christian state]] where the minority has to adjust to the majority. [[note]]Brazil is a Catholic-majority secular state and Bolsonaro is a Roman Catholic, yet he enjoys a big support from Evangelical Protestants that hold a level of parliamentary power in the so called "Evangelical lobby" who are attributed to have secured Bolsonaro's victory.[[/note]]

As mentioned above, many people would consider him [[TransatlanticEquivalent the Brazilian equivalent]] to Donald Trump (even being nicknamed the "Trump of the Tropics"), which Bolsonaro himself would definitely view as a compliment. His foreign policy is staunchly pro-American (specially towards the Trump administration) and pro-UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} (to the point he intends to close relations with the [[UsefulNotes/PalestinianTerritories State of Palestine]]). Bolsonaro has also shown suspicion towards China, which also happens to be Brazil's economical partner in the BRICS, and intends to move away from its sphere of influence in order to formalize closer relationships with America. And before India saw a surge of cases in early 2021, Brazil was only behind the United States in countries most afflicted by the Usefulnotes/COVID19Pandemic, as Bolsonaro, like Trump, downplayed the potential dangers of the disease.

Back in TheNineties he actually used to defend UsefulNotes/HugoChavez (being that they're both military figures who entered politics and defended/launched coups, eventually leading both their countries) and a more statist economic policy, with the government having a key role in national development and owning key sectors of the economy (which was actually the policy of the UsefulNotes/BrazilianMilitaryRegime after its more liberal, smaller-government early years), even voting in Congress against privatizations, [[OldShame but that's all in the past now]].

Much like former [[UsefulNotes/Philippines Filipino]] president Rodrigo Duterte on the other side of the globe (with whom he also shares a similar history of controversial statements), he is an extremely [[FlameWar hot topic]] not just in Brazil but [[AmericansHateTingle abroad too]] - two of his most well-known detractors are Creator/ElliotPage and Creator/StephenFry, who view him as someone who threatens the rights of minorities, especially members of the queer community. He himself sees Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio as something of an [[{{archenemy}} arch-nemesis]]. His supporters point out that his policies run contrary to one who seeks to establish a fascist regime, while critics who at best, don't necessarily believe he will implement a dictatorship, believe that his policies will backfire in regards to environmental issues and granting access to weapons to anyone will further exacerbate violence than control it.

In 2022, Bolsonaro would run against Lula da Silva for re-election to the presidency: It was found that during the trial that sentenced Lula, the judge, Sergio Moro (who would go on to become Bolsonaro's Minister of Justice) exchanged Telegram messages with the prosecution, essentially telling them how to get a guilty veredict, which resulted in Brazil's Supreme Court declaring him biased and nullifying the whole case, allowing Lula to run for public office again. The initial results were inconclusive, with neither side securing a majority vote, thus necessitating a second round of voting some weeks later. The second round narrowly went to Lula,[[note]]with a difference of a little over 2 million votes, putting Lula just shy of a 51% majority,[[/note]] making him president for a third term. Bolsonaro refused to accept the election results and concede defeat, instead leaving Brazil for the United States. On January 8, 2023, in a parallel to the 2021 attack on the United States Capitol, supporters of Bolsonaro attempted to occupy government buildings in protest.[[note]]The major different being that the attack in Brazil occurred while the National Congress was adjourned for the weekend. As such, it's baffling why they thought storming ''empty'' government buildings would achieve something.[[/note]]