Conor Foley is a Visiting Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and has worked on legal reform, human rights and protection issues in over thirty conflict zones. His previous books include, Protecting Brazilians Against Torture, Another System Is Possible and The Thin Blue Line.

Jair Bolsonaro is a former military officer who has been a full-time politician in Brazil for almost thirty years. He never distinguished himself as a lawmaker, and the same vague accusations of graft swirl around him as the rest of Brazil's political class. His notoriety comes from making a series of bizarrely offensive statements during his career. He told a fellow legislator that she was too ugly to raped by him; said that he would rather his son die than accept him as gay; has repeatedly taunted Afro-Brazilians, indigenous communities, and those from the poorer states of the northeast; and stated that the dictatorship’s only mistake was that it did not kill enough of its political opponents. When casting his vote for the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff in 2016, Bolsonaro dedicated it to the memory of the head of intelligence of the military dictatorship, a man responsible for torturing over one hundred political dissidents, including Dilma herself. On the eve of his election Bolsonaro released a statement in which he promised to imprison his political opponents and echoed a slogan from the dictatorship era: "Brazil, love it or leave it".

Bolsonaro’s inauguration speech of 1 January 2019 vowed to "liberate" Brazil from "socialism", "gender ideology", "political correctness", and "ideology that defends bandits". Unfurling the Brazilian flag, he declared that it would "never be red unless our blood is needed to keep it yellow and green.” Hours after taking office he announced a new regulation transferring the protection and regulation of indigenous land rights to the Ministry of Agriculture, which is now dominated by the country's powerful "agribusiness lobby". Other newly appointed ministers also began to unveil their own platforms and programs, which will be discussed further in subsequent chapters of this book. Perhaps the most extraordinary of these came from Damares Alves, an Evangelical lay preacher and head of the newly amalgamated Ministry for Women, Families and Human Rights. A video emerged on social media of her leading supporters in a raucous, singsong, nursery-rhyme chant of "boys must dress in blue and girls must dress in pink," which she subsequently explained was a metaphor for her government's commitment to combat “gender ideology" in Brazilian schools.

It is difficult to exaggerate the threats that Bolsonaro poses to a just social order both in Brazil and beyond. The world's fourth-largest country could now slide from democracy to dictatorship. Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and the expropriation of land from Brazil's indigenous people will certainly accelerate. If Brazil pulls out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the threat of humanity-destroying global warming comes ever nearer. Bolsonaro's promises of impunity to the police who carry out extrajudicial executions, support for torture and the death penalty, and pledge to repeal the country's gun laws will make one of the most violent countries in the world even more deadly. Where Brazil under previous governments had played a leading part in developing an independent foreign policy for the Global South, Bolsonaro is already slavishly echoing even the most idiotic pronouncements of US president Donald Trump. The incendiary and fascist rhetoric that he used during the campaign and has promoted throughout his political career also cuts deep into the body politic of one of the most racially, ethnically, culturally, and socially diverse societies in the world.

Conor Foley is a Visiting Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and has worked on legal reform, human rights and protection issues in over thirty conflict zones. His previous books include, Protecting Brazilians Against Torture, Another System Is Possible and The Thin Blue Line.

Jair Bolsonaro is a former military officer who has been a full-time politician in Brazil for almost thirty years. He never distinguished himself as a lawmaker, and the same vague accusations of graft swirl around him as the rest of Brazil's political class. His notoriety comes from making a series of bizarrely offensive statements during his career. He told a fellow legislator that she was too ugly to raped by him; said that he would rather his son die than accept him as gay; has repeatedly taunted Afro-Brazilians, indigenous communities, and those from the poorer states of the northeast; and stated that the dictatorship’s only mistake was that it did not kill enough of its political opponents. When casting his vote for the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff in 2016, Bolsonaro dedicated it to the memory of the head of intelligence of the military dictatorship, a man responsible for torturing over one hundred political dissidents, including Dilma herself. On the eve of his election Bolsonaro released a statement in which he promised to imprison his political opponents and echoed a slogan from the dictatorship era: "Brazil, love it or leave it".

Bolsonaro’s inauguration speech of 1 January 2019 vowed to "liberate" Brazil from "socialism", "gender ideology", "political correctness", and "ideology that defends bandits". Unfurling the Brazilian flag, he declared that it would "never be red unless our blood is needed to keep it yellow and green.” Hours after taking office he announced a new regulation transferring the protection and regulation of indigenous land rights to the Ministry of Agriculture, which is now dominated by the country's powerful "agribusiness lobby". Other newly appointed ministers also began to unveil their own platforms and programs, which will be discussed further in subsequent chapters of this book. Perhaps the most extraordinary of these came from Damares Alves, an Evangelical lay preacher and head of the newly amalgamated Ministry for Women, Families and Human Rights. A video emerged on social media of her leading supporters in a raucous, singsong, nursery-rhyme chant of "boys must dress in blue and girls must dress in pink," which she subsequently explained was a metaphor for her government's commitment to combat “gender ideology" in Brazilian schools.

It is difficult to exaggerate the threats that Bolsonaro poses to a just social order both in Brazil and beyond. The world's fourth-largest country could now slide from democracy to dictatorship. Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and the expropriation of land from Brazil's indigenous people will certainly accelerate. If Brazil pulls out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the threat of humanity-destroying global warming comes ever nearer. Bolsonaro's promises of impunity to the police who carry out extrajudicial executions, support for torture and the death penalty, and pledge to repeal the country's gun laws will make one of the most violent countries in the world even more deadly. Where Brazil under previous governments had played a leading part in developing an independent foreign policy for the Global South, Bolsonaro is already slavishly echoing even the most idiotic pronouncements of US president Donald Trump. The incendiary and fascist rhetoric that he used during the campaign and has promoted throughout his political career also cuts deep into the body politic of one of the most racially, ethnically, culturally, and socially diverse societies in the world.