With COVID-19 surging across the globe, and most of the world focused on the pandemic response, it’s reasonable that a story involving politicians and anal cavities that has captivated most of Brazil came and went fairly quickly on the international stage. Almost three weeks ago President Jair Bolsonaro’s Senate deputy leader, Chico Rodrigues, was reportedly caught with wads of cash clenched between his buttocks during a police raid at his home. The search was part of an investigation into COVID-19 relief funds that had allegedly been misappropriated. News of the story led to a viral hashtag, #PropinaNaBunda (a bribe up the bum), with Rodrigues vehemently denying wrongdoing and Bolsonaro brushing the incident aside. Given that Bolsonaro won in 2018 on a platform that included promising to rid the country of corruption, the incident showcased, yet again, the fact that he is full of shit.
Bolsonaro came to power in October 2018 after a particularly volatile campaign that saw the then presidential candidate allegedly stabbed in the abdomen at an event, forcing him to record a video while lying in a hospital bed. In a country where machismo is a national pillar and Christianity a way of life, there was no better photo op than Bolsonaro staunchly recuperating while giving thanks to Deus for his divine protection. He fortified his rise with promises to end rampant corruption, shift away from elitism, and bring conservative family values back to a liberal government that had expanded LGBTQIA rights, aggressively sought to combat domestic violence, and was fighting a battle centered on the protection of reproductive rights. The former army captain also promised a return to “law and order,” a sentiment that over half of Brazil’s voting population supported in a country where gangs run entire neighborhoods and violent crime has been on the rise.
Throughout, the parallels between Bolsonaro and Donald Trump have been undeniable. At times they’ve been so uncanny that Carol Pires, host of the popular Bolsonaro-centric podcast Retrato Narrado, or Narrated Portrait, and cowriter of the Oscar-nominated documentary The Edge of Democracy, which traces the rise and fall of liberal presidents Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has wondered if it’s a deliberate act. “But I think Trump is smarter than Bolsonaro,” she told me over the phone. “Trump was able to hijack the Republican Party. And Bolsonaro is this guy who grew up poor in the countryside, joined the military, saw that there was a place for his beliefs, and then decided to bring it into politics.”
While both have presided over glorified circuses during their presidencies, Bolsonaro has flailed even wider. In November 2019, after increased leadership tensions within his party—Partido Social Liberal (PSL)—he created his own, Aliança pelo Brasil, instating his eldest son, Flávio, as party vice president. “I still have doubts on whether Bolsonaro has ever known what he is doing or if he’s just chaotic,” Pires said. Luiza Miguez, a journalist and writer for the HBO Brasil news show Greg News and Rádio Novelo, noted that the history of right-wing alignment between the two nations goes as far back as the U.S. Civil War. After the Union won, Brazil, where slavery was still legal, “opened its borders to Confederate soldiers, offering them land, support, and a new place to call home,” she said. Their arrival is commemorated to this day with festivities in which women essentially role-play as Scarlett O’Hara and men as Rhett Butler. “Even during the military dictatorship, America embraced the country, so Trump and Bolsonaro are not anomalous.”
Many of Bolsonaro’s complaints against Lula and Rousseff revolved around their choice to rely on each other, holding similar positions and working together within their party. Bolsonaro framed this as calculated nepotism, a breathtaking claim from a man whose three oldest sons have been installed at different levels of government. Flávio, the oldest, is a member of the Federal Senate of Rio de Janeiro. Carlos is alderman of the Rio de Janeiro municipal chamber. Eduardo, the youngest, is a member of the Chamber of Deputies. Last year Eduardo joined the right-wing group the Movement—founded by former Trump henchman Steve Bannon—as the South American representative, and that same year his father tapped him to become Brazil’s ambassador to the U.S., with Trump’s administration formally endorsing the nomination. “He is friends with Trump’s sons, he speaks fluent English and Spanish, and he has a lot of life experience,” Bolsonaro said at the time. (Eduardo later withdrew from the nomination following internal issues within PSL.)
Like Trump’s children and son-in-law, Bolsonaro’s sons act as both spokespeople and fans, using social media to bash detractors who allegedly want to topple the presidency and the media. “Bolsonaro’s sons are like his tentacles, expanding his reach in the country,” said Pires. Since ascending to the presidency, Bolsonaro has been accused of listening to his sons more than his own ministers, who are in constant conflict with Carlos in particular. “You can break down the crises of his political career through the activities of his sons,” said Pires. “So the first year it was Eduardo who was in the news, and at this moment it’s Flávio. When he is defending his sons, he is also defending himself, because their only agenda is to amplify their father’s discourse.”
In recent months Flávio has been accused of masterminding an extensive money-laundering ring (which he denied in a video post), while all four have come under scrutiny for their exposed links to militias, including members accused of killing popular Rio city councillor Marielle Franco in 2018. It would be easy to assume that national media has no shortage of stories to chase. Yet it’s precisely this excess that has left many publications struggling. “Bolsonaro came into power during a very difficult time in Brazilian media,” said Pires. “Newsrooms are getting smaller and smaller…[and] it’s so hard to write about [Bolsonaro] because he says different things to different people. He will say one thing to the media, one thing to Congress, and another on Twitter. And the newsroom does not have the resources to follow him.” This point was echoed by Patrícia Monteiro, a documentary photographer who covered Bolsonaro’s 2019 inauguration. “He has made it impossible for people to trust the media. I have family members who have stopped watching Globo because they have heard him say it’s ‘fake news,’” she said. “All they do is read his tweets and go on his Facebook.”